AI for the Public Sector: Opportunities and challenges of cross-sector collaboration

Public sector organisations are increasingly interested in using data science and artificial intelligence capabilities to deliver policy and generate efficiencies in high uncertainty environments. The long-term success of data science and AI in the public sector relies on effectively embedding it into delivery solutions for policy implementation. However, governments cannot do this integration of AI into public service delivery on their own. The UK Government Industrial Strategy is clear that delivering on the AI grand challenge requires collaboration between universities and public and private sectors. This cross-sectoral collaborative approach is the norm in applied AI centres of excellence around the world. Despite their popularity, cross-sector collaborations entail serious management challenges that hinder their success. In this article we discuss the opportunities and challenges from AI for public sector. Finally, we propose a series of strategies to successfully manage these cross-sectoral collaborations

Visual Acuity Measures Do Not Reliably Detect Childhood Refractive Error - an Epidemiological Study

PURPOSE: To investigate the utility of uncorrected visual acuity measures in screening for refractive error in white school children aged 6-7-years and 12-13-years. METHODS: The Northern Ireland Childhood Errors of Refraction (NICER) study used a stratified random cluster design to recruit children from schools in Northern Ireland. Detailed eye examinations included assessment of logMAR visual acuity and cycloplegic autorefraction. Spherical equivalent refractive data from the right eye were used to classify significant refractive error as myopia of at least 1DS, hyperopia as greater than +3.50DS and astigmatism as greater than 1.50DC, whether it occurred in isolation or in association with myopia or hyperopia. RESULTS: Results are presented from 661 white 12-13-year-old and 392 white 6-7-year-old school-children. Using a cut-off of uncorrected visual acuity poorer than 0.20 logMAR to detect significant refractive error gave a sensitivity of 50% and specificity of 92% in 6-7-year-olds and 73% and 93% respectively in 12-13-year-olds. In 12-13-year-old children a cut-off of poorer than 0.20 logMAR had a sensitivity of 92% and a specificity of 91% in detecting myopia and a sensitivity of 41% and a specificity of 84% in detecting hyperopia. CONCLUSIONS: Vision screening using logMAR acuity can reliably detect myopia, but not hyperopia or astigmatism in school-age children. Providers of vision screening programs should be cognisant that where detection of uncorrected hyperopic and/or astigmatic refractive error is an aspiration, current UK protocols will not effectively deliver

A multi-gene signature predicts outcome in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

© 2014 Haider et al.; licensee BioMed Central. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Improved usage of the repertoires of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) profiles is crucially needed to guide the development of predictive and prognostic tools that could inform the selection of treatment options

Atmospheric Evolution

Earth's atmosphere has evolved as volatile species cycle between the atmosphere, ocean, biomass and the solid Earth. The geochemical, biological and astrophysical processes that control atmospheric evolution are reviewed from an "Earth Systems" perspective, with a view not only to understanding the history of Earth, but also to generalizing to other solar system planets and exoplanets.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted as a chapter in "Encyclopaedia of Geochemistry", Editor Bill White, Springer-Nature, 201

Endoscopic treatment of prepatellar bursitis

Operative treatment of prepatellar bursitis is indicated in intractable bursitis. The most common complication of surgical treatment for prepatellar bursitis is skin problems. For traumatic prepatellar bursitis, we propose a protocol of outpatient endoscopic surgery under local anaesthesia. From September 1996 to February 2001, 60 cases of failed nonoperative treatment for prepatellar bursitis were included. The average age was 33.5 ± 11.1 years (range 21–55). The average operation duration was 18 minutes. Two to three mini-arthroscopic portals were used in our series. No sutures or a simple suture was needed for the portals after operation. After follow-up for an average of 36.3 months, all patients are were symptom-free and had regained knee function. None of the population had local tenderness or hypo-aesthesia around their wound. Their radiographic and sonographic examinations showed no recurrence of bursitis. Outpatient arthroscopic bursectomy under local anaesthesia is an effective procedure for the treatment of post-traumatic prepatellar bursitis after failed conservative treatments. Both the cosmetic results and functional results were satisfactory

Advances in prevention and therapy of neonatal dairy calf diarrhoea : a systematical review with emphasis on colostrum management and fluid therapy

Neonatal calf diarrhoea remains the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in preweaned dairy calves worldwide. This complex disease can be triggered by both infectious and non-infectious causes. The four most important enteropathogens leading to neonatal dairy calf diarrhoea are Escherichia coli, rota-and coronavirus, and Cryptosporidium parvum. Besides treating diarrhoeic neonatal dairy calves, the veterinarian is the most obvious person to advise the dairy farmer on prevention and treatment of this disease. This review deals with prevention and treatment of neonatal dairy calf diarrhoea focusing on the importance of a good colostrum management and a correct fluid therapy

Asthma self-assessment in a Medicaid population

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Self-assessment of symptoms by patients with chronic conditions is an important element of disease management. A recent study in a commercially-insured population found that patients who received automated telephone calls for asthma self-assessment felt they benefitted from the calls. Few studies have evaluated the effectiveness of disease self-assessment in Medicaid populations. The goals of this study were to: (1) assess the feasibility of asthma self-assessment in a population predominantly insured by Medicaid, (2) study whether adding a gift card incentive increased completion of the self-assessment survey, and (3) evaluate how the self-assessment affected processes and outcomes of care.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We studied adults and children aged 4 years and older who were insured by a Medicaid-focused managed care organization (MCO) in a pre- and post-intervention study. During the pre-incentive period, patients with computerized utilization data that met specific criteria for problematic asthma control were mailed the Asthma Control Test (ACT), a self-assessment survey, and asked to return it to the MCO. During the intervention period, patients were offered a $20 gift card for returning the completed ACT to the MCO. To evaluate clinical outcomes, we used computerized claims data to assess the number of hospitalization visits and emergency department visits experienced in the 3 months after receiving the ACT. To evaluate whether the self-management intervention improved processes of care, we conducted telephone interviews with patients who returned or did not return the ACT by mail.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>During the pre-incentive period, 1183 patients were identified as having problems with asthma control; 25 (2.0%) of these returned the ACT to the MCO. In contrast, during the incentive period, 1612 patients were identified as having problems with asthma control and 87 (5.4%) of these returned the ACT to the MCO (p < 0.0001). Of all 95 ACTs that were returned, 87% had a score of 19 or less, which suggested poor asthma control.</p> <p>During the 3 months after they received the ACT, patients who completed it had similar numbers of outpatient visits, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations for asthma as patients who did not complete the ACT. We completed interviews with 95 patients, including 28 who had completed the ACT and 67 who had not. Based on an ACT administered at the time of the interview, patients who had previously returned the ACT to the MCO had asthma control similar to those who had not (mean scores of 14.2 vs. 14.6, p = 0.70). Patients had similar rates of contacting their providers within the past 2 months whether they had completed the mailed ACT or not (71% vs. 76%, p = 0.57).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Mailing asthma self-assessment surveys to patients with poorly controlled asthma was not associated with better asthma-associated outcomes or processes of care in the Medicaid population studied. Adding a gift card incentive did not meaningfully increase response rates. Asthma disease management programs for Medicaid populations will most likely need to involve alternative strategies for engaging patients and their providers in managing their conditions.</p

High-dose chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery versus surgery alone in esophageal cancer: a retrospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We aimed to assess whether high-dose preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) improves outcome in esophageal cancer patients compared to surgery alone and to define possible prognostic factors for overall survival.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Hundred-and-seven patients with disease stage IIA - III were treated with either surgery alone (n = 45) or high-dose preoperative CRT (n = 62). The data were collected retrospectively. Sixty-seven patients had adenocarcinomas, 39 squamous cell carcinomas and one undifferentiated carcinoma. CRT was given as three intensive chemotherapy courses by cisplatin 100 mg/m²on day 1 and 5-fluorouracil 1000 mg/m²/day, from day 1 through day 5 as continuous infusion. One course was given every 21 days. The last two courses were given concurrent with high-dose radiotherapy, 2 Gy/fraction and a median dose of 66 Gy. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis with log rank test was used to obtain survival data and Cox Regression multivariate analysis was used to define prognostic factors for overall survival.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Toxicity grade 3 of CRT occurred in 30 (48.4%) patients and grade 4 in 24 (38.7%) patients of 62 patients. One patient died of neutropenic infection (grade 5). Fifty percent (31 patients) in the CRT group did undergo the planned surgery. Postoperative mortality rate was 9% and 10% in the surgery alone and CRT+ surgery groups, respectively (p = 1.0). Median overall survival was 11.1 and 31.4 months in the surgery alone and CRT+ surgery groups, respectively (log rank test, p = 0.042). In the surgery alone group one, 3 and 5 year survival rates were 44%, 24% and 16%, respectively and in the CRT+ surgery group they were 68%, 44% and 29%, respectively. By multivariate analysis we found that age of patient, performance status, alcoholism and > = 4 pathological positive lymph nodes in resected specimen were significantly associated with overall survival, whereas high-dose preoperative CRT was not.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We found no significant survival advantage in esophageal cancer stage IIA-III following preoperative high-dose CRT compared to surgery alone. Patient's age, performance status, alcohol abuse and number of positive lymph nodes were prognostic factors for overall survival.</p

Understanding atmospheric organic aerosols via factor analysis of aerosol mass spectrometry: a review

Organic species are an important but poorly characterized constituent of airborne particulate matter. A quantitative understanding of the organic fraction of particles (organic aerosol, OA) is necessary to reduce some of the largest uncertainties that confound the assessment of the radiative forcing of climate and air quality management policies. In recent years, aerosol mass spectrometry has been increasingly relied upon for highly time-resolved characterization of OA chemistry and for elucidation of aerosol sources and lifecycle processes. Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometers (AMS) are particularly widely used, because of their ability to quantitatively characterize the size-resolved composition of submicron particles (PM1). AMS report the bulk composition and temporal variations of OA in the form of ensemble mass spectra (MS) acquired over short time intervals. Because each MS represents the linear superposition of the spectra of individual components weighed by their concentrations, multivariate factor analysis of the MS matrix has proved effective at retrieving OA factors that offer a quantitative and simplified description of the thousands of individual organic species. The sum of the factors accounts for nearly 100% of the OA mass and each individual factor typically corresponds to a large group of OA constituents with similar chemical composition and temporal behavior that are characteristic of different sources and/or atmospheric processes. The application of this technique in aerosol mass spectrometry has grown rapidly in the last six years. Here we review multivariate factor analysis techniques applied to AMS and other aerosol mass spectrometers, and summarize key findings from field observations. Results that provide valuable information about aerosol sources and, in particular, secondary OA evolution on regional and global scales are highlighted. Advanced methods, for example a-priori constraints on factor mass spectra and the application of factor analysis to combined aerosol and gas phase data are discussed. Integrated analysis of worldwide OA factors is used to present a holistic regional and global description of OA. Finally, different ways in which OA factors can constrain global and regional models are discussed