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Generating High Precision Classification Rules for Screening of Irrelevant Studies in Systematic Review Literature Searches

Systematic reviews aim to produce repeatable, unbiased, and comprehensive answers to clinical questions. Systematic reviews are an essential component of modern evidence based medicine, however due to the risks of omitting relevant research they are highly time consuming to create and are largely conducted manually. This thesis presents a novel framework for partial automation of systematic review literature searches. We exploit the ubiquitous multi-stage screening process by training the classifier using annotations made by reviewers in previous screening stages. Our approach has the benefit of integrating seamlessly with the existing screening process, minimising disruption to users. Ideally, classification models for systematic reviews should be easily interpretable by users. We propose a novel, rule based algorithm for use with our framework. A new approach for identifying redundant associations when generating rules is also presented. The proposed approach to redundancy seeks to both exclude redundant specialisations of existing rules (those with additional terms in their antecedent), as well as redundant generalisations (those with fewer terms in their antecedent). We demonstrate the ability of the proposed approach to improve the usability of the generated rules. The proposed rule based algorithm is evaluated by simulated application to several existing systematic reviews. Workload savings of up to 10% are demonstrated. There is an increasing demand for systematic reviews related to a variety of clinical disciplines, such as diagnosis. We examine reviews of diagnosis and contrast them against more traditional systematic reviews of treatment. We demonstrate existing challenges such as target class heterogeneity and high data imbalance are even more pronounced for this class of reviews. The described algorithm accounts for this by seeking to label subsets of non-relevant studies with high precision, avoiding the need to generate a high recall model of the minority class

Travel, Meal, & Entertainment Expense Deductions in U.S. Tax Court Cases

Henry T. Petersen, is a C.P.A. with Strickland and Jones, P.C., Norfolk, Virginia 23510-1517. Tim C. McKee, M.B.A., J.D., LL.M., C.P.A., is the University Professor of Accounting, Department of Accounting, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529-0229

The application of stem cells for research and treatment of neurological disorders

Neðst á síðunni er hægt að nálgast greinina í heild sinni með því að smella á hlekkinn View/OpenIt has long been a common view that neurons in the human central nervous system were not capable of self renewal. But in the mid-1990s scientists discovered that certain areas of the human brain do have the ability generate new neurons, at least under certain circumstances. It was subsecuently confirmed that the human central nervous system contains stem cells similar to the cells which originally give rise to the central nervous sysem during fetal development. The possible use of stem cells in the treatment of various neurological disorders, holds great promise. However, much research needs to be carried out before stem cell therapy can be moved from the bench to the bedside. Now researchers are pursuing two fundamental strategies to exploit the possible application of stem cells. One is to cultivate stem cells in vitro and to design the right differentiation profile of cells suitable for implantation. The other strategy relies on studying endogenous signals that could stimulate the patient s own stem cells and repair mechanisms. Here we give an overview of neural stem cells and their possible future use in the treatment of neural diseases such as Parkinson s disease, Motor Neuron Disease and Spinal cord injury.Lengi hefur verið talið að taugafrumur manna hefðu enga eða takmarkaða hæfileika til endurnýjunar. Nánast var um kennisetningu að ræða þrátt fyrir að endurnýjun taugafrumna væri að einhverju leyti þekkt til dæmis hjá fuglum og froskum. Það var svo á miðjum tíunda áratug síðustu aldar að vísindamenn komust að því að á vissum svæðum í mannsheilanum færi fram endurnýjun taugafrumna. Í framhaldi af þessu var staðfest að taugavefur manna inniheldur stofnfrumur. Eru þær taldar líkjast þeim frumum sem eru uppruni taugakerfisins í fósturþroska. Miklar væntingar eru bundnar við notkun stofnfrumna til lækninga á ýmsum sjúkdómum. Í grundvallaratriðum eru tvær megin leiðir mögulegar til að nálgast þetta markmið. Annars vegar er það ræktun stofnfrumna utan líkama sem svo eru græddar í sérhæfðu eða ósérhæfðu ástandi í sjúkling í þeim tilgangi að lækna vefjaskaða. Hins vegar eru rannsóknir á umhverfi stofnfrumna. Aukin þekking á umhverfi vefjastofnfrumna og á þáttum sem stuðla að endurnýjun og sérhæfingu þeirra gæti leitt til þess að hægt sé að örva vefjastofnfrumur sjúklingsins og efla þannig hin innlægu viðgerðarferli sem gera líkamanum kleift að takast á við sjúkdóma eða slys með áhrifaríkari hætti en áður. Markmið þessarar greinar er að gefa stutt yfirlit yfir stöðu mála og framtíðarsýn hvað varðar rannsóknir á taugastofnfrumum og mögulega nýtingu þeirra til lækninga á sjúkdómum á borð við Parkinsonsjúkdóm, hreyfitaugungahrörnun og mænuskaða

Sink or swim: Exploring resilience of academics at an education faculty during Covid-19

There is a proliferation of local and international research focusing on COVID-19 and its impact on the practices of teaching and learning in higher education. However, a dearth of research exists that focuses on the resilience of academics in higher education during COVID-19 in South Africa. Considering this gap, a group of curriculum officers at an Education faculty based at a university of technology in the Western Cape set out to explore how resilient academics were during COVID-19. Thirteen academics who teach in and across the Foundation Phase, Intermediate Phase and Further Education and Training phase participated in a focus group interview. Data was analysed thematically using content analysis whereby three themes were identified: creativity through complexity, embracing challenge through resilience and connecting with self. The implications reveal that universities as a contextual environment for promoting resilience need to engage with the social and physical ecology of staff by providing support and resources to be resilient during times of crises. The dominant nature of the hierarchical dynamics of university’s management also needs to be considered as part of a social ecological perspective in valuing academics’ wellbeing during times of crises

Colouring Australia: a participatory open data platform

Colouring Australia is a digital platform for collecting and visualising building level information across several Australian cities. It provides a valuable resource for bringing together data on building age, material, sustainability ratings, walkability and other key metrics as we plan for net zero cities. Colouring Australia comprises part of the international Colouring Cities Research Programme, which supports the development of open-source platforms that provide open data on national building stocks. In this paper we outline the technical architecture of the platform, and the development and visualisation of a building level walkability metric based on pedestrian access to destinations. This platform provides a useful digital tool for planners to understand which parts of the city are walkable and in turn this can support future active transport programs and policies. Future research will be to validate this novel walkability index through a series of stakeholder and public workshops using the Colouring Australia platform in an interactive tabletop environment where usability testing can be undertaken

Water & Nutrient Stress Increase Root Exudation

A presentation on how to develop procedures to grow healthy plants under sterile conditions, manipulate root exudation with stress, and quantify total organic carbon in exudates and determine composition of exudates using GC-MS

Long-term effects of cropping system on N2O emission potential

The potential for N2O emissions outside the main growing season may be influenced by long-term effects of cropping system. This was investigated by collecting intact soil cores (100 cm3, 0-4 cm depth) under winter wheat in three organic cropping systems and a conventional reference within a long-term crop rotation experiment. Average annual inputs of C in crop residues and manure ranged from 1.7 to 3.3 Mg ha-1. A simulated freeze-thaw cycle resulted in a flush of CO2 during the first 48 h, which could be mainly from microbial sources. Other samples were adjusted to approximately –10, -30 or –100 hPa and amended with excess 15NO3- prior to freezing and thawing. Denitrification was the main source of N2O during a 72-h incubation at 22C, as judged from N2O and total 15N evolution. Although the input of C in the conventionally managed cropping system was significantly less than in the organic cropping systems, it showed higher N2O evolution at all three matric potentials. Estimates of relative gas diffusivity (DP/D0) in soil from the four cropping systems indicated that C input affected soil aeration. Soil from the two cropping systems with highest C input showed N2O evolution at DP/D0 in excess of 0.02, which is normally considered a threshold for development of anaerobic sites in the soil, presumably because the oxygen demand was also high. The study shows that cropping system affects both soil gas diffusivity and C availability, and that both characteristics significantly influence the N2O emission potential