Online multiple profile manager for eHealth information sharing

Online social networks connect millions of people around the globe. These electronic bonds make individuals comfortable with their behaviours. Such positive signs of sharing information is useful phenomena requires consideration to establish a socio-scientific effect. Recently, many web users have more than one social networking account. This means a user may hold multiple profiles which are stored in different Social Network Sites (SNNs). Maintaining these multiple online social network profiles is cumbersome and time-consuming [1]. In this paper we will propose a framework for the management of a user's multiple profiles. A demonstrator, called Multiple Profile Manager (MPM), will be showcased to illustrate how effective the framework will be.

Short answer versus multiple choice examination questions for first year chemistry

Multiple choice (MC) examinations are frequently used for the summative assessment of large classes because of their ease of marking and their perceived objectivity. However, traditional MC formats usually lead to a surface approach to learning, and do not allow students to demonstrate the depth of their knowledge or understanding. For these reasons, we have trialled the incorporation of short answer (SA) questions into the final examination of two first year chemistry units, alongside MC questions. Students’ overall marks were expected to improve, because they were able to obtain partial marks for the SA questions. Although large differences in some individual students’ performance in the two sections of their examinations were observed, most students received a similar percentage mark for their MC as for their SA sections and the overall mean scores were unchanged. In-depth analysis of all responses to a specific question, which was used previously as a MC question and in a subsequent semester in SA format, indicates that the SA format can have weaknesses due to marking inconsistencies that are absent for MC questions. However, inclusion of SA questions improved student scores on the MC section in one examination, indicating that their inclusion may lead to different study habits and deeper learning. We conclude that questions asked in SA format must be carefully chosen in order to optimise the use of marking resources, both financial and human, and questions asked in MC format should be very carefully checked by people trained in writing MC questions. These results, in conjunction with an analysis of the different examination formats used in first year chemistry units, have shaped a recommendation on how to reliably and cost-effectively assess first year chemistry, while encouraging higher order learning outcomes.

Preliminary insights from a multiple case study on process modelling impact

Process modelling – the design and use of graphical documentations of an organisation’s business processes – is a key method to document and use information about business processes in organisational projects. Still, despite current interest in process modelling, this area of study still faces essential challenges. One of the key unanswered questions concerns the impact of process modelling in organisational practice. Process modelling initiatives call for tangible results in the form of returns on the substantial investments that organisations undertake to achieve improved processes. This study explores the impact of process model use on end-users and its contribution to organisational success. We posit that the use of conceptual models creates impact in organisational process teams. We also report on a set of case studies in which we explore tentative evidence for the development of impact of process model use. The results of this work provide a better understanding of process modelling impact from information practices and also lead to insights into how organisations should conduct process modelling initiatives in order to achieve an optimum return on their investment.

Comparison of cervical and blood T-cell responses to human papillomavirus-16 in women with human papillomavirus-associated cervical intraepithelial neoplasia

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are obligate epithelial pathogens and typically cause localized mucosal infections. We therefore hypothesized that T-cell responses to HPV antigens would be greater at sites of pathology than in the blood. Focusing on HPV-16 because of its association with cervical cancer, the magnitude of HPV-specific T-cell responses at the cervix was compared with those in the peripheral blood by intracellular cytokine staining following direct ex vivo stimulation with both virus-like particles assembled from the major capsid protein L1, and the major HPV oncoprotein, E7. We show that both CD4 + and CD8 + T cells from the cervix responded to the HPV-16 antigens and that interferon-γ (IFN-γ) production was HPV type-specific. Comparing HPV-specific T-cell IFN-γ responses at the cervix with those in the blood, we found that while CD4 + and CD8 + T-cell responses to L1 were significantly correlated between compartments (P = 0.02 and P = 0.05, respectively), IFN-γ responses in both T-cell subsets were significantly greater in magnitude at the cervix than in peripheral blood (P = 0.02 and P = 0.003, respectively). In contrast, both CD4 + and CD8 + T-cell IFN-γ responses to E7 were of similar magnitude in both compartments and CD8 + responses were significantly correlated between these distinct immunological compartments (P = 0.04). We therefore show that inflammatory T-cell responses against L1 (but not E7) demonstrate clear compartmental bias and the magnitude of these responses do reflect local viral replication but that correlation of HPV-specific responses between compartments indicates their linkage.

Reliability of partial ambiguity fixing with multiple GNSS constellations

Reliable ambiguity resolution (AR) is essential to Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning and its applications, since incorrect ambiguity fixing can lead to largely biased positioning solutions. A partial ambiguity fixing technique is developed to improve the reliability of AR, involving partial ambiguity decorrelation (PAD) and partial ambiguity resolution (PAR). Decorrelation transformation could substantially amplify the biases in the phase measurements. The purpose of PAD is to find the optimum trade-off between decorrelation and worst-case bias amplification. The concept of PAR refers to the case where only a subset of the ambiguities can be fixed correctly to their integers in the integer least-squares (ILS) estimation system at high success rates. As a result, RTK solutions can be derived from these integer-fixed phase measurements. This is meaningful provided that the number of reliably resolved phase measurements is sufficiently large for least-square estimation of RTK solutions as well. Considering the GPS constellation alone, partially fixed measurements are often insufficient for positioning. The AR reliability is usually characterised by the AR success rate. In this contribution an AR validation decision matrix is firstly introduced to understand the impact of success rate. Moreover the AR risk probability is included into a more complete evaluation of the AR reliability. We use 16 ambiguity variance-covariance matrices with different levels of success rate to analyse the relation between success rate and AR risk probability. Next, the paper examines during the PAD process, how a bias in one measurement is propagated and amplified onto many others, leading to more than one wrong integer and to affect the success probability. Furthermore, the paper proposes a partial ambiguity fixing procedure with a predefined success rate criterion and ratio-test in the ambiguity validation process. In this paper, the Galileo constellation data is tested with simulated observations. Numerical results from our experiment clearly demonstrate that only when the computed success rate is very high, the AR validation can provide decisions about the correctness of AR which are close to real world, with both low AR risk and false alarm probabilities. The results also indicate that the PAR procedure can automatically chose adequate number of ambiguities to fix at given high-success rate from the multiple constellations instead of fixing all the ambiguities. This is a benefit that multiple GNSS constellations can offer.

Intratherapist reliability in the rating of scapula posture in multiple planes of reference

Background: Evaluation of scapular posture is a fundamental component in the clinical evaluation of the upper quadrant. This study examined the intrarater reliability of scapular posture ratings. Methods: A test-retest reliability investigation was undertaken with one week between assessment sessions. At each session physical therapists conducted visual assessments of scapula posture (relative to the thorax) in five different scapula postural planes (plane of scapula, sagittal plane, transverse plane, horizontal plane, and vertical plane). These five plane ratings were performed for four different scapular posture perturbating conditions (rest, isometric shoulder; flexion, abduction, and external rotation). Results. A total of 100 complete scapular posture ratings (50 left, 50 right) were undertaken at each assessment. The observed agreement between the test and retest postural plane ratings ranged from 59% to 87%; 16 of the 20 plane-condition combinations exceeded 75% observed agreement. Kappa (and prevalence adjusted bias adjusted kappa) values were inconsistent across the postural planes and perturbating conditions. Conclusions: This investigation generally revealed fair to moderate intrarater reliability in the rating of scapular posture by visual inspection. However, enough disagreement between assessments was present to warrant caution when interpreting perceived changes in scapula position between longitudinal assessments using visual inspection alone.

Fine-mapping identifies multiple prostate cancer risk loci on 5p15 some associating with TERT expression

Associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at 5p15 and multiple cancer types have been reported. We have previously shown evidence for a strong association between prostate cancer (PrCa) risk and rs2242652 at 5p15, intronic in the telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) gene that encodes TERT. To comprehensively evaluate the association between genetic variation across this region and PrCa, we performed a fine-mapping analysis by genotyping 134 SNPs using a custom Illumina iSelect array or Sequenom MassArray iPlex, followed by imputation of 1094 SNPs in 22 301 PrCa cases and 22 320 controls in The PRACTICAL consortium. Multiple stepwise logistic regression analysis identified four signals in the promoter or intronic regions of TERT that independently associated with PrCa risk. Gene expression analysis of normal prostate tissue showed evidence that SNPs within one of these regions also associated with TERT expression, providing a potential mechanism for predisposition to disease.

Speaker attribution of multiple telephone conversations using a complete-linkage clustering approach

In this paper we propose and evaluate a speaker attribution system using a complete-linkage clustering method. Speaker attribution refers to the annotation of a collection of spoken audio based on speaker identities. This can be achieved using diarization and speaker linking. The main challenge associated with attribution is achieving computational efficiency when dealing with large audio archives. Traditional agglomerative clustering methods with model merging and retraining are not feasible for this purpose. This has motivated the use of linkage clustering methods without retraining. We first propose a diarization system using complete-linkage clustering and show that it outperforms traditional agglomerative and single-linkage clustering based diarization systems with a relative improvement of 40% and 68%, respectively. We then propose a complete-linkage speaker linking system to achieve attribution and demonstrate a 26% relative improvement in attribution error rate (AER) over the single-linkage speaker linking approach.

The effects of linguistic factors on student performance on economics multiple choice questions

This paper proposes a framework to analyse performance on multiple choice questions with the focus on linguistic factors. Item Response Theory (IRT) is deployed to estimate ability and question difficulty levels. A logistic regression model is used to detect Differential Item Functioning questions. Probit models testify relationships between performance and linguistic factors controlling the effects of question construction and students’ background. Empirical results have important implications. The lexical density of stems affects performance. The use of non-Economics specialised vocabulary has differing impacts on the performance of students with different language backgrounds. The IRT-based ability and difficulty help explain performance variations.

Efficient solution of multiple cracks in great number using eigen COD boundary integral equations with iteration procedure

A newly developed computational approach is proposed in the paper for the analysis of multiple crack problems based on the eigen crack opening displacement (COD) boundary integral equations. The eigen COD particularly refers to a crack in an infinite domain under fictitious traction acting on the crack surface. With the concept of eigen COD, the multiple cracks in great number can be solved by using the conventional displacement discontinuity boundary integral equations in an iterative fashion with a small size of system matrix to determine all the unknown CODs step by step. To deal with the interactions among cracks for multiple crack problems, all cracks in the problem are divided into two groups, namely the adjacent group and the far-field group, according to the distance to the current crack in consideration. The adjacent group contains cracks with relatively small distances but strong effects to the current crack, while the others, the cracks of far-field group are composed of those with relatively large distances. Correspondingly, the eigen COD of the current crack is computed in two parts. The first part is computed by using the fictitious tractions of adjacent cracks via the local Eshelby matrix derived from the traction boundary integral equations in discretized form, while the second part is computed by using those of far-field cracks so that the high computational efficiency can be achieved in the proposed approach. The numerical results of the proposed approach are compared not only with those using the dual boundary integral equations (D-BIE) and the BIE with numerical Green's functions (NGF) but also with those of the analytical solutions in literature. The effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed approach is verified. Numerical examples are provided for the stress intensity factors of cracks, up to several thousands in number, in both the finite and infinite plates.

Mapping of multiple quantitative trait loci affecting bovine spongiform encephalopathy

A whole-genome scan was conducted to map quantitative trait loci (QTL) for BSE resistance or susceptibility. Cows from four half-sib families were included and 173 microsatellite markers were used to construct a 2835-cM (Kosambi) linkage map covering 29 autosomes and the pseudoautosomal region of the sex chromosome. Interval mapping by linear regression was applied and extended to a multiple-QTL analysis approach that used identified QTL on other chromosomes as cofactors to increase mapping power. In the multiple-QTL analysis, two genome-wide significant QTL (BTA17 and X/Y ps) and four genome-wide suggestive QTL (BTA1, 6, 13, and 19) were revealed. The QTL identified here using linkage analysis do not overlap with regions previously identified using TDT analysis. One factor that may explain the disparity between the results is that a more extensive data set was used in the present study. Furthermore, methodological differences between TDT and linkage analyses may affect the power of these approaches.

On the prediction of simultaneous inbreeding coefficients at multiple loci

A new deterministic method for predicting simultaneous inbreeding coefficients at three and four loci is presented. The method involves calculating the conditional probability of IBD (identical by descent) at one locus given IBD at other loci, and multiplying this probability by the prior probability of the latter loci being simultaneously IBD. The conditional probability is obtained applying a novel regression model, and the prior probability from the theory of digenic measures of Weir and Cockerham. The model was validated for a finite monoecious population mating at random, with a constant effective population size, and with or without selfing, and also for an infinite population with a constant intermediate proportion of selfing. We assumed discrete generations. Deterministic predictions were very accurate when compared with simulation results, and robust to alternative forms of implementation. These simultaneous inbreeding coefficients were more sensitive to changes in effective population size than in marker spacing. Extensions to predict simultaneous inbreeding coefficients at more than four loci are now possible.

Effects of wireless sensor network uncertainties on output-only modal analysis employing merged data of multiple tests

The use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has become a promising approach due to many advantages such as low cost, fast and flexible deployment. However, inherent technical issues such as data synchronization error and data loss have prevented these distinct systems from being extensively used. Recently, several SHM-oriented WSNs have been proposed and believed to be able to overcome a large number of technical uncertainties. Nevertheless, there is limited research verifying the applicability of those WSNs with respect to demanding SHM applications like modal analysis and damage identification. This paper first presents a brief review of the most inherent uncertainties of the SHM-oriented WSN platforms and then investigates their effects on outcomes and performance of the most robust Output-only Modal Analysis (OMA) techniques when employing merged data from multiple tests. The two OMA families selected for this investigation are Frequency Domain Decomposition (FDD) and Data-driven Stochastic Subspace Identification (SSI-data) due to the fact that they both have been widely applied in the past decade. Experimental accelerations collected by a wired sensory system on a large-scale laboratory bridge model are initially used as clean data before being contaminated by different data pollutants in sequential manner to simulate practical SHM-oriented WSN uncertainties. The results of this study show the robustness of FDD and the precautions needed for SSI-data family when dealing with SHM-WSN uncertainties. Finally, the use of the measurement channel projection for the time-domain OMA techniques and the preferred combination of the OMA techniques to cope with the SHM-WSN uncertainties is recommended.