Predicting Order Status using XGBoost

Invista, a Koch subsidiary, is a multinational producer of fibers, resins, and intermediaries, particularly nylon. To keep the company operating required them to take over 1.5 million orders over the course of - years, less than a third of which arrived on-time. Orders arriving other than when expected can cause many problems for any company. While arriving late is a clear problem, it also troublesome for them to arrive early. In the face of this, it becomes important to be able to tell a-priori if an order will arrive on-time or not. To address this problem, we made use of those 1.5 million orders to try and learn how to predict if an order would be on-time or not. There are many methods for doing so and we tried three approaches: Neural-Networks, Gradient Boosting, and Time series. In the end we found the Gradient Boosting algorithm worked the best. We utilized the popular XGBoost framework of Gradient boosting. This was made further appealing by the company having utilized this algorithm before

Examining the patient and caregiver experience with diazepam nasal spray for seizure clusters: Results from an exit survey of a phase 3, open-label, repeat-dose safety study

BACKGROUND: Ideal rescue treatments for acute treatment of seizure clusters should be easy to administer, so it is important to assess user perceptions of these treatments. Diazepam nasal spray is designed to have a rapid, noninvasive, and socially acceptable route of administration. Patient and caregiver (including care partner) responses to surveys from a phase 3 safety study of diazepam nasal spray are reported. METHODS: The study enrolled patients aged 6-65 years with seizure clusters. Surveys distributed to patients and caregivers at study end, completion, or discontinuation collected data on comfort using diazepam nasal spray outside the home, timing of administration and return to their usual selves, and comfort of use compared with rectal diazepam. Safety was assessed. RESULTS: Of 175 patients enrolled at the October 31, 2019, interim cutoff, 158 received diazepam nasal spray. Sixty-seven (42.4%) patients and 84 (53.2%) caregivers responded to the surveys (including 35 matched pairs). Most patients (78.8%, 52/66) responded that they were very comfortable doing activities outside the home with diazepam nasal spray available; 59.4% of patients returned to their usual selves within an hour of administration. Twenty-seven (40.3%) of these patients reported self-administration, 48% doing so at the first sign of a seizure. Administration of diazepam nasal spray was rated extremely or very easy by 93.8% of caregivers. Safety profile was consistent with diazepam rectal gel; no patient discontinued owing to treatment-emergent adverse events. Nasal discomfort was typically mild and transient. Among patients who had used diazepam rectal gel, most were not at all comfortable using it outside the home (86.7%) or at home (64.5%) compared with diazepam nasal spray, whereas caregivers reported that diazepam rectal gel was not at all easy to use compared with diazepam nasal spray. CONCLUSIONS: This survey from the phase 3 safety study of diazepam nasal spray shows that patients and caregivers were satisfied with, and more comfortable using, diazepam nasal spray than rectal diazepam in public. NCT02721069

Work Hard Play Harder

This project examines students opinions of their college experience as they are finishing the last year of their college career. The author seeks to answer the question of what students will take from their experience at the University of Illinois. Will the stories that students carry away from college be similar to the stories that they heard before attending college? Based on individual interviews with students on campus, this study concludes that some students feel they have earned a valuable education at the university, while some feel that they learned more from experiences with friends that have taught students more about themselves.unpublishe

Gratification

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