Inferring individual attributes from search engine queries and auxiliary information

Internet data has surfaced as a primary source for investigation of different aspects of human behavior. A crucial step in such studies is finding a suitable cohort (i.e., a set of users) that shares a common trait of interest to researchers. However, direct identification of users sharing this trait is often impossible, as the data available to researchers is usually anonymized to preserve user privacy. To facilitate research on specific topics of interest, especially in medicine, we introduce an algorithm for identifying a trait of interest in anonymous users. We illustrate how a small set of labeled examples, together with statistical information about the entire population, can be aggregated to obtain labels on unseen examples. We validate our approach using labeled data from the political domain. We provide two applications of the proposed algorithm to the medical domain. In the first, we demonstrate how to identify users whose search patterns indicate they might be suffering from certain types of cancer. In the second, we detail an algorithm to predict the distribution of diseases given their incidence in a subset of the population at study, making it possible to predict disease spread from partial epidemiological data

Survey of waste disposal methods in Awka metropolis

Waste disposal methods commonly practiced in Awka metropolis, Anambra state were investigated from August to October, 2013. Data was analyzed with both descriptive statistics of frequency and percentages, and alternate hypotheses were tested using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) at a significance level of 0.05. Respondents in support of open burning were 61.2 %, while 2.9 % took to burying waste as their preferred waste management option. Only about 34.0 % of the waste generated was collected at the dumpsites within the metropolis by the waste management agency, as the participants rely on their preferred waste  management options without any consideration to the associated health and environmental consequences. Statistical analysis revealed that residents of Awka believed that their waste disposal methods were safe and waste collection points were enough. The residents do not shy away from participating in disposal of waste. Majority of the respondents were of the secondary school category that engages in domestic chores

Families' social backgrounds matter : socio-economic factors, home learning and young children's language, literacy and social outcomes

Parental support with children's learning is considered to be one pathway through which socio-economic factors influence child competencies. Utilising a national longitudinal sample from the Millennium Cohort Study, this study examined the relationship between home learning and parents' socio-economic status and their impact on young children's language/literacy and socio-emotional competence. The findings consistently showed that, irrespective of socio-economic status, parents engaged with various learning activities (except reading) roughly equally. The socio-economic factors examined in this study, i.e., family income and maternal educational qualifications, were found to have a stronger effect on children's language/literacy than on social-emotional competence. Socio-economic disadvantage, lack of maternal educational qualifications in particular, remained powerful in influencing competencies in children aged three and at the start of primary school. For children in the first decade of this century in England, these findings have equity implications, especially as the socio-economic gap in our society widens

Crowdworker Economics in the Gig Economy

The nature of work is changing. As labor increasingly trends to casual work in the emerging gig economy, understanding the broader economic context is crucial to effective engage- ment with a contingent workforce. Crowdsourcing represents an early manifestation of this fluid, laisser-faire, on-demand workforce. This work analyzes the results of four large-scale surveys of US-based Amazon Mechanical Turk workers recorded over a six-year period, providing compa- rable measures to national statistics. Our results show that despite unemployment far higher than national levels, crowd- workers are seeing positive shifts in employment status and household income. Our most recent surveys indicate a trend away from full-time-equivalent crowdwork, coupled with a reduction in estimated poverty levels to below national figures. These trends are indicative of an increasingly flexible workforce, able to maximize their opportunities in a rapidly changing national labor market, which may have material impacts on existing models of crowdworker behavior.This work was supported by an EPSRC studentship and EPSRC grants EP/N010558/1 and EP/R004471/1

A partition functional and thermodynamic properties of the infinite-dimensional Hubbard model

An approximate partition functional is derived for the infinite-dimensional Hubbard model. This functional naturally includes the exact solution of the Falicov-Kimball model as a special case, and is exact in the uncorrelated and atomic limits. It explicitly keeps spin-symmetry. For the case of the Lorentzian density of states, we find that the Luttinger theorem is satisfied at zero temperature. The susceptibility crosses over smoothly from that expected for an uncorrelated state with antiferromagnetic fluctuations at high temperature to a correlated state at low temperature via a Kondo-type anomaly at a characteristic temperature $T^\star$. We attribute this anomaly to the appearance of the Hubbard pseudo-gap. The specific heat also shows a peak near $T^\star$. The resistivity goes to zero at zero temperature, in contrast to other approximations, rises sharply around $T^\star$ and has a rough linear temperature dependence above $T^\star$.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures upon request, latex, (to appear in Phys. Rev. B

Angle of Incidence Effects on Far-Field Positive and Negative Phase Blast Parameters

The blast overpressure acting on a rigid target is known to vary between the normally reflected overpressure and the incident overpressure as a function of the angle between the target and the direction of travel of the blast wave. Literature guidance for determining the exact effects of angle of incidence are unclear, particularly when considering the negative phase. This paper presents the results from a series of well controlled experiments where pressure transducers are used to record the pressure-time history acting on the face of a large, rigid target at various angles of incidence for varying sizes of hemispherical PE4 charge and stand-off distances. The test data demonstrated remarkable repeatability, and excellent agreement with semi-empirical predictions for normally reflected overpressures. The oblique results show that peak overpressure, impulse and duration are highly dependent on angle of incidence for the positive phase, and are invariant of angle of incidence for the negative phase

Rituximab for treatment of severe lupus nephritis

PubMe

Occupational safety and regulatory compliance in US commercial fishing

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Taylor & Francis for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Archives of Environmental & Occupational Health 66 (2011): 209-216, doi:10.1080/19338244.2011.564237.This study explored occupational safety practices and regulatory compliance in a representative sample of Maine commercial fishing vessels. Data were collected on demographic characteristics, safety equipment and training, and regulatory compliance during at sea boardings of working commercial fishing vessels (n=259). Trends in safety and compliance were explored using standard comparison tests and principal component analysis. More than 40% of vessels were not in compliance with applicable safety regulations. That rate was lower for fishermen subjected to more stringent and costly safety requirements. The vast majority of fishermen were not safety trained, and many were not familiar with the proper use and maintenance of life-saving equipment. There is a clear need for better safety training in this industry. Educational efforts should be targeted at the local level at minimal cost to fishermen to encourage participation.This study was supported by funding from Maine Sea Grant and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (R/08-03 NA060AR4170108)