Toward Order-of-Magnitude Cascade Prediction

When a piece of information (microblog, photograph, video, link, etc.) starts to spread in a social network, an important question arises: will it spread to "viral" proportions -- where "viral" is defined as an order-of-magnitude increase. However, several previous studies have established that cascade size and frequency are related through a power-law - which leads to a severe imbalance in this classification problem. In this paper, we devise a suite of measurements based on "structural diversity" -- the variety of social contexts (communities) in which individuals partaking in a given cascade engage. We demonstrate these measures are able to distinguish viral from non-viral cascades, despite the severe imbalance of the data for this problem. Further, we leverage these measurements as features in a classification approach, successfully predicting microblogs that grow from 50 to 500 reposts with precision of 0.69 and recall of 0.52 for the viral class - despite this class comprising under 2\% of samples. This significantly outperforms our baseline approach as well as the current state-of-the-art. Our work also demonstrates how we can tradeoff between precision and recall.Comment: 4 pages, 15 figures, ASONAM 2015 poster pape

Market reaction to announcement of hedge fund activism and takeovers : a US study

1 online resource (38 p.) : col. ill.Includes abstract and appendices.Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-28).This paper studies the impact of hedge fund activism and takeovers on public firms in the United States of America. The research examines samples of 13D filings which show that a positive abnormal return is achieved when activists announce their intentions for a target company. I have taken sample data from the SEC EDGAR website between 2005 and 2012. The significant positive abnormal return for the activism target firm is calculated as 11 percent around the announcement date. The returns are explained by the performance of hedge fund activists and the process by which they force target firms into takeovers. The paper also shows that the firms targeted by the activists have a higher probability of being acquired

Combined Forward-Backward Asymmetry Measurements in Top-Antitop Quark Production at the Tevatron

The CDF and D0 experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron have measured the asymmetry between yields of forward- and backward-produced top and antitop quarks based on their rapidity difference and the asymmetry between their decay leptons. These measurements use the full data sets collected in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt s =1.96$ TeV. We report the results of combinations of the inclusive asymmetries and their differential dependencies on relevant kinematic quantities. The combined inclusive asymmetry is $A_{\mathrm{FB}}^{t\bar{t}} = 0.128 \pm 0.025$. The combined inclusive and differential asymmetries are consistent with recent standard model predictions

Inadequacy of Musculoskeletal Knowledge Among Undergraduate Medical Students

Background/Purpose: Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a significant public health problem. It has been observed that after leaving medical school, students are incapable of making a general assessment of the musculoskeletal system. Methods: Accordingly, a pilot study was planned using the Freedman and Bernstein questionnaire and carried out in medical schools in India. Three hundred and twelve students at different levels were enrolled and administered the questionnaire. The correctness score for each student was obtained in each group and compared with the recommended qualifying score. Results: For the sixth term and the ninth term, 44.61% and 50.71% students met the criterion, respectively, while interns showed the highest proportion of 71.42%. For the majority of the questions, the awareness level of ninth semester students and interns was better than that of sixth term students. Conclusion: Compared to studies in other countries, the situation in India is not different. Medical institutions should place stress on orthopaedic education to provide better physicians

Management of extensive maxillofacial injury related to a Tyre Blast: A rare case report

Background: Severe blast injuries of large tyres are similar to those resulting from explosions with neither thermal nor chemical effects. The literature related to the destructive nature of these blasts is very sparse. This case aims to report the clinical management of a patient involved in large tyre blasts who presented with a severe soft tissue injury, comminuted mandible and associated multiple facial fractures due to a tyre blast injury. Results: Excellent results were obtained following reduction and fixation of fractures with primary suturing, as these types of injuries are prone to infection secondarily. Conclusion: Due to the etiology and severity of injury, these injuries are challenging to operate and are more prone to infection following surgery. These require careful management skills. Keywords: Maxillofacial injury, Tyre blast, Comminuted mandible, Internal fixation, Complication

An approximate superposition method to obtain a planet's orbit

We demonstrate that the deviation produced by one celestial object on the Keplerian orbit of another around the Sun is largely independent of the presence of the remaining ones. Hence, to calculate the net deviation of an object from its Keplerian orbit, we superpose the deviations produced by every other object. We show that this method will be useful when dealing with a system containing a large number of objects. As a demonstration, we apply our method to the solar system, with a particular focus on the orbit of Uranus

Students as Partners in collaborative course design: University Science Education

The global Students as Partners movement showcases students working alongside faculty as co-designers, co-researchers, co-developers etc. on a wide variety of educational issues (Healy et al. 2014). In this work, we explore the impact of such a collaborative approach to course design. The course in question, a 3rd year one-semester offering called University Science Education, opened with a syllabus providing only basic administrative information and broad educational outcomes. During the first 3 weeks, faculty facilitators collaborated with students within an Appreciative Inquiry framework to develop expanded outcomes, specific learning activities, assessments, rubrics, due dates and course policies. Written course materials and focus group transcripts from consenting students were de-identified, coded and subjected to longitudinal interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Student responses clustered around two major themes of: i) “growth”, expressed as willingness to confront and learn from personal and/or academic challenges; and ii) “effect”, expressed as students’ awareness that their education in science is now collaborative, empowered, and resting on foundational understanding. We experienced collaborative course design as a powerful vehicle for engagement for faculty and students alike. Healy, M., Flint, A., & Harrington, K. (2014). Engagement through partnership: Students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. York, UK: Higher Education Academy

Prediction of Coronary Artery Disease using Ankle Brachial Pressure Index in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus: A Cross-sectional Study

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus confers a tenfold risk of cardiovascular disease due to atherosclerosis. Screening a large number of patients for Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) in susceptible population groups is required. Ankle Brachial Pressure Index (ABPI) is a non invasive tool for identifying atherosclerosis and peripheral artery disease and can be used in large population studies. Hence the present study attempted to assess the applicability of ABPI as a tool for prediction of CAD in diabetic patients. Aim: To calculate the ABPI in patients of diabetes mellitus and to assess the association of ABPI value with presence of CAD, duration of CAD and with the microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at MMIMSR, Mullana from December 2019 to July 2021. A 100 patients suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus for more than five years duration were included. Patients were divided into two groups based on the presence or absence of CAD. ABPI was calculated in each patients and its correlation was assessed with CAD and association with microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus. The correlation assessed using Pearson correlation test. The mean was compared in with respect to independent t-test (for two groups). Results: Out of 100 patients there were 78 males and 22 females of mean age 60.64±10.97 years. Microvascular complications were present in 35% cases. Past history of CAD was present in 58%, stroke in 9%, hypertension in 15% and chronic kidney disease in 8%. Electrocardiogram (ECG) changes of CAD were observed in 56% while 2D-ECHO showed Regional Wall Motion Abnormality (RWMA) in 57 cases while 18 had angiographic evidence. Mean ABPI was 0.79 and 1.17 in the CAD and non CAD group respectively which was significant. A negative correlation was observed with ABPI and duration of CAD in years with Pearson correlation value of-0.260 (p-value 0.049). Conclusion: ABPI was also found to be negatively correlated with the duration of CAD and was significantly lower in diabetic patients with microvascular complications of diabetes. ABPI had a senstivity of 84.5% and specificity of 90.5% in prediction of CAD in patients suffering from diabetes