Identification of financial statement fraud in Greece by using computational intelligence techniques

The consequences of financial fraud are an issue with far-reaching for investors, lenders, regulators, corporate sectors and consumers. The range of development of new technologies such as cloud and mobile computing in recent years has compounded the problem. Manual detection which is a traditional method is not only inaccurate, expensive and time-consuming but also they are impractical for the management of big data. Auditors, financial institutions and regulators have tried to automated processes using statistical and computational methods. This paper presents comprehensive research in financial statement fraud detection by using machine learning techniques with a particular focus on computational intelligence (CI) techniques. We have collected a sample of 2469 observations since 2002 to 2015. Research gap was identified as none of the existing researchers address the association between financial statement fraud and CI-based detection algorithms and their performance, as reported in the literature. Also, the innovation of this research is that the selection of data sample is aimed to create models which will be capable of detecting the falsification in financial statements

Surveillance of febrile patients in a district and evaluation of their spatiotemporal associations: a pilot study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fever is an undifferentiated clinical feature that may enhance the sensitivity of syndromic surveillance systems. By studying the spatiotemporal associations of febrile patients, it may allow early detection of case clustering that indicates imminent threat of infectious disease outbreaks in the community.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We captured consecutive emergency department visits that led to hospitalization in a district hospital in Hong Kong during the period of 12 Sep 2005 to 14 Oct 2005. We recorded demographic data, provisional diagnoses, temperature on presentation and residential location for each patient-episode, and geocoded the residential addresses. We applied Geographical Information System technology to study the geographical distribution these cases, and their associations within a 50-m buffer zone spatially. A case cluster was defined by three or more spatially associated febrile patients within each three consecutive days.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>One thousand and sixty six patient-episodes were eligible for analysis; 42% of them had fever (>37°C; oral temperature) on presentation. Two hundred and four patient-episodes (19.1%) came from residential care homes for elderly (RCHE). We detected a total of 40 case clusters during the study period. Clustered cases were of older age; 57 (33.3%) were residents of RCHE. We found a median of 3 patients (range: 3 - 8) and time span of 3 days (range: 2 - 8 days) in each cluster. Twenty five clusters had 2 or more patients living in the same building block; 18 of them were from RCHE.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>It is technically feasible to perform surveillance on febrile patients and studying their spatiotemporal associations. The information is potentially useful for early detection of impending infectious disease threats.</p

Hemolymph microbiome of Pacific oysters in response to temperature, temperature stress and infection

Microbiota provide their hosts with a range of beneficial services, including defense from external pathogens. However, host-associated microbial communities themselves can act as a source of opportunistic pathogens depending on the environment. Marine poikilotherms and their microbiota are strongly influenced by temperature, but experimental studies exploring how temperature affects the interactions between both parties are rare. To assess the effects of temperature, temperature stress and infection on diversity, composition and dynamics of the hemolymph microbiota of Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas), we conducted an experiment in a fully-crossed, three-factorial design, in which the temperature acclimated oysters (8 or 22 °C) were exposed to temperature stress and to experimental challenge with a virulent Vibrio sp. Strain. We monitored oyster survival and repeatedly collected hemolymph of dead and alive animals to determine the microbiome composition by 16s rRNA gene amplicon pyrosequencing. We found that the microbial dynamics and composition of communities in healthy animals (including infection survivors) were significantly affected by temperature and temperature stress, but not by infection. The response was mediated by changes in the incidence and abundance of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and accompanied by little change at higher taxonomic levels, indicating dynamic stability of the hemolymph microbiome. Dead and moribund oysters, on the contrary, displayed signs of community structure disruption, characterized by very low diversity and proliferation of few OTUs. We can therefore link short-term responses of host-associated microbial communities to abiotic and biotic factors and assess the potential feedback between microbiota dynamics and host survival during disease

The location of olfactory receptors within olfactory epithelium is independent of odorant volatility and solubility

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Our objective was to study the pattern of olfactory receptor expression within the dorsal and ventral regions of the mouse olfactory epithelium. We hypothesized that olfactory receptors were distributed based on the chemical properties of their ligands: e.g. receptors for polar, hydrophilic and weakly volatile odorants would be present in the dorsal region of olfactory epithelium; while receptors for non-polar, more volatile odorants would be distributed to the ventral region. To test our hypothesis, we used micro-transplantation of cilia-enriched plasma membranes derived from dorsal or ventral regions of the olfactory epithelium into Xenopus oocytes for electrophysiological characterization against a panel of 100 odorants.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Odorants detected by ORs from the dorsal and ventral regions showed overlap in volatility and water solubility. We did not find evidence for a correlation between the solubility and volatility of odorants and the functional expression of olfactory receptors in the dorsal or ventral region of the olfactory epithelia.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>No simple clustering or relationship between chemical properties of odorants could be associated with the different regions of the olfactory epithelium. These results suggest that the location of ORs within the epithelium is not organized based on the physico-chemical properties of their ligands.</p

The muon system of the Daya Bay Reactor antineutrino experiment

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Improved Measurement of Electron Antineutrino Disappearance at Daya Bay

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Evolution of the Reactor Antineutrino Flux and Spectrum at Daya Bay

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