ENHANCEMENT OF CHURN PREDICTION ALGORITHMS

Customer churn can be described as the process by which consumers of goods and services discontinue the consumption of a product or service and switch over to a competitor.It is of great concern to many companies. Thus, decision support systems are needed to overcome this pressing issue and ensure good return on investments for organizations. Decision support systems use analytical models to provide the needed intelligence to analyze an integrated customer record database to predict customers that will churn and offer recommendations that will prevent them from churning. Customers churn prediction, unlike most conventional business intelligence techniques, deals with customer demographics, net worth-value, and market opportunities. It is used in determining customers who are likely to churn, those likely to remain loyal to the organization, and for prediction of future churn rates. Customer defection is naturally a slow rate event, and it is not easily detected by most business intelligent solutions available in the market; especially when data is skewed, large, and distinct. Thus, accurate and precise prediction methods are needed to detect the churning trend. In this study, a churn model that applies business intelligence techniques to detect the possibility that a customer will churn using churn trend analysis of customer records is proposed. The model applies clustering algorithms and enhanced SPRINT decision tree algorithms to explore customer record database, and identify the customer profile and behavior patterns. The Model then predicts the possibility that a customer will churn. Additionally, it offers solutions for retaining customers and making them loyal to a business entity by recommending customer-relationship management measures

Outcome of caesarean section at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital, Banjul The Gambia

Background: Caesarean section is a very important procedure to decrease maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. Anecdotal evidence suggests that more than half of all caesarean sections done in The Gambia are done at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital.Objective: The aim of the study was to determine the caesarean section rate at the Edward Francis Small teaching Hospital. The study also aimed to determine the socio-demographic factors associated with caesarean section and maternal and fetal outcomes of caesarean section at the hospital.Method: A retrospective review of all caesarean sections carried out at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital from 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2014 was done. Data was extracted from patients’ record. Descriptive statistics was done using Epi Info 7 statistical software.Results: The Caesarean section rate in the hospital is 24.0%. The commonest indications for caesarean section were previous caesarean section (20.6%) and cephalopelvic disproportion (20.2%). There were 21 maternal deaths (1.8%) and 71 fresh stillbirths (6.0%) in the study population.Conclusion: About a quarter of all deliveries in the hospital were caesarean sections most of which were done as emergencies. The commonest indications for caesarean section were cephalopelvic disproportion and previous caesarean section.Keywords: Caesarean section, Banjul The Gambia

The Doctrine of Resurrection and the Challenge of Traditional Igbo (African) Eschatology

Die Motivation dieses Buch zu schreiben entspringt den pastoralen Reformen des II. Vatikanischen Konzils. Eine der Erwartungen dieses Konzils war das Aufscheinen eines "Zweiten Pfingstereignisses", um eine größere und bessere Kirche zu erreichen. Offenheit war eine der Früchte dieses Konzils; die Kirche wurde sensibel für die Werte anderer Religionen zum Vorteil der theologischen Entwicklung. Das bedeutet aber auch, dass jede gegenwärtige Theologie, die die pastoralen Reformen des Konzils für gewährleistet hält, es riskiert, der wahren Größe des Glaubens Schaden zuzufügen. In Erkenntnis der Werte, die in anderen Religionen zu finden sind, behandelt dieses Buch ein Thema im Besonderen, die Frage der Eschatologie. Der Autor versucht, einen christlichen Glaubenssatz - die Auferstehung - aus der traditionellen Igbo-Perspektive Ilo-uwa (Wiedergeburt?) zu definieren. Um eine klare Abgrenzung zwischen der asiatischen Vorstellung der Wiedergeburt und Ilo-uwa zu treffen, legt diese Darstellung große Aufmerksamkeit auf die innere und äußere Dynamik der Konzeptbedeutung Ilo-uwa. Ausschlaggebend hierfür sind vor allem zwei Gründe: Der eine ist die Vervollständigung. Nach Meinung des Autors dieses Buches gibt es bestimmte Werte in anderen Religionen, die die christlichen religiösen Werte entweder bereichern oder ergänzen können; zum Beispiel der Glaube an das Jenseits. Zweitens beschreibt dieses Buch eine angemessene Definition einiger traditioneller Igbo-Werte, die auch die Eschatologie umfasst. Das Überleben der Igbo-Kirche hängt von dem Verständnis einiger dieser Werte ab und der praktische Weg, dieses Überleben zu sichern, ist eine Evangelisation duch Inkulturation.The writing of this book is motivated by the pastoral reforms of the second Vatican Council. One of the expectations of the council was the ‘descent’ of the ‘second Pentecost’ to achieve a bigger and better church. One of the fruits of the council was openness; the church became docile to the values found in other religions to the advantage of the development of theology. This means that any theology in the present that takes the pastoral reforms of the council for granted risks the danger of compromising the real growth of faith. In recognition of the values found in other religions, this book treats one of the topics of religious concern, the issue of eschatology. The author tries to define resurrection which is a Christian article of faith from the Igbo traditional perspective of Ilo-uwa (reincarnation?). In trying to make a clear distinction between the Asian form of reincarnation and Ilo-uwa, this thesis pays greater attention to the internal and external dynamics of the meaning of the concept Ilo-uwa. There are two major reasons for addressing this topic. The very first reason is complementarity. It is the opinion of the author of this book that there are certain values in African religions that could either enrich or compliment the Christian religious values, for instance, the belief in the living-dead. Secondly, this book suggests an appropriate definition of some Igbo traditional values including eschatology. The survival of the Igbo Church depends on the understanding of some of these values and the practical way to do this is through evangelization via inculturation

Uptake of long-acting reversible contraceptive devices in Western region of The Gambia.

Background: The contraceptive method has become an essential factor in the life of most women of reproductive age group; although it varies in different stages of their life course. The use of long acting reversible methods (LARC) is proposed as a strategy to reverse undesirable maternal health consequences in developing countries. Objective: To determine the uptake of long-acting reversible contraceptive in The Gambia. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study of women attending family planning clinic were studied using interviewer- administered questionnaire which included information on socio-demographic factors, reproductive health and contraceptive use of the participants. Results: About 89 % of study participants used long acting reversible contraceptive methods. Of the three commonly available long acting reversible contraceptive methods, Depo Provera was the most commonly used method; 78 of 141 (55.32%); followed by implants (43.3%) and intrauterine contraceptive (1.42%). Being housewives, with 3-4 living children and having secondary level education were associated with high uptake of LARC. Conclusion: The uptake of long acting reversible contraceptive was high; with Depo Provera as the most commonly used contraceptive method in The Gambia. There seemed to be an increase in the uptake of implants; with intrauterine contraceptive device being the least commonly used method

Web GIS in practice IX: a demonstration of geospatial visual analytics using Microsoft Live Labs Pivot technology and WHO mortality data

The goal of visual analytics is to facilitate the discourse between the user and the data by providing dynamic displays and versatile visual interaction opportunities with the data that can support analytical reasoning and the exploration of data from multiple user-customisable aspects. This paper introduces geospatial visual analytics, a specialised subtype of visual analytics, and provides pointers to a number of learning resources about the subject, as well as some examples of human health, surveillance, emergency management and epidemiology-related geospatial visual analytics applications and examples of free software tools that readers can experiment with, such as Google Public Data Explorer. The authors also present a practical demonstration of geospatial visual analytics using partial data for 35 countries from a publicly available World Health Organization (WHO) mortality dataset and Microsoft Live Labs Pivot technology, a free, general purpose visual analytics tool that offers a fresh way to visually browse and arrange massive amounts of data and images online and also supports geographic and temporal classifications of datasets featuring geospatial and temporal components. Interested readers can download a Zip archive (included with the manuscript as an additional file) containing all files, modules and library functions used to deploy the WHO mortality data Pivot collection described in this paper