Qualitative modelling of credit scoring : a case study in banking

Several modelling procedures have been suggested in the literature that aim to help credit granting decisions. Most of these utilize statistical, operational research and artificial intelligence techniques to identify patterns among past applications, in order to enable a more well-informed assessment of risk as well as the automation of credit scoring. For some types of loans, we find that the modelling procedure must permit the consideration of qualitative expert judgements concerning the performance attractiveness of the applications. In this paper, we describe in detail the various steps taken to build such a model in the context of the banking sector, using the MACBETH interactive approach. The model addresses the scoring of medium and long term loans to firms, to enable the multicriteria assignment of each application to a category which may range from rejection to acceptance with different spreads.peer-reviewe

"Relaxar é aprender sobre nós próprios": relaxamento e ioga para crianças na educação pré-escolar

O bem-estar emocional na educação pré-escolar é um processo central, mas também uma componente de qualidade e um propósito educativo (Bertram & Pascal, 2009; Laevers, 2005; Mashford-Scott, Church, & Tayler, 2012). Reconhece-se que um forte sentimento de bem-estar permite que as crianças interajam com confiança no ambiente e aproveitem as oportunidades educativas - aspeto encapsulado no conceito de implicação (Laevers, 1997, 2000, 2005). Os conceitos de bem-estar e implicação são relevantes para a investigação, mas também para uma prática preocupada com a perspetiva da criança, expressa de diferentes formas e através de diferentes linguagens. O relaxamento para crianças é perspetivado como promovendo bem-estar, diminuindo ansiedade e stress (Guillaud, 2004; Silva, 1998) e criando atividades indutoras de sensibilidade e interação (Humblet & Guzman, 2013). A promoção de auto-conhecimento e de cognição social são pontos de contacto entre as sessões de relaxamento e a Educação Experiencial. A comunicação pretende apresentar dados de um estudo realizado no âmbito do Mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1.º CEB, em contexto de Prática de Ensino Supervisionada. A rotina do contexto de estágio incluía um momento de relaxamento, de 20 minutos após o almoço, organizado pela orientadora cooperante há vários anos. As 20 crianças do grupo participaram em diferentes tipos de sessões de relaxamento, tendo sido registados níveis de implicação e de bem-estar usando as escalas de observação desenvolvidas para o contexto português por Portugal e Laevers (2010). As diferentes sessões de relaxamento foram: ioga, meditação guiada com música e massagens. A comparação entre sessões baseou-se nas médias de implicação e bem-estar por sessão e nos indicadores mais referidos pelos observadores. Foram, ainda, realizadas entrevistas individuais às crianças e à cooperante sobre as sessões, analisadas através de uma análise de conteúdo temática. Procurou-se, assim, responder à necessidade de conhecer a forma como as crianças experienciam o bem-estar emocional (Mashford-Scott et al., 2012). Todas as sessões revelaram qualidade nos resultados das duas escalas embora os diferentes formatos tenham resultado em ênfases distintas nos indicadores (persistência e precisão no ioga, vitalidade e relaxamento nas massagens, alegria e ligação com o próprio na música). As crianças identificam o relaxamento como parte do seu dia, revelam preferências específicas e individuais por partes das sessões, embora descrevam mais o que fazem do que o sentem

Sustentabilidade mineral no setor português da Faixa Piritosa Ibérica

ABSTRACT: The Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB) is one of the most important volcanogenic massive sulphide districts in the world and has been mined during more than 5 000 years. Its early and rich mining history is known to have been very important in Tartessian and Roman times when working the oxidation and cementation zones of the deposits for gold, silver and copper preferentially took place in the outcropping deposits. Even after continuous metal extraction for more than 5000 years, the IPB retains exceptionally large metal reserves. The IPB remains a hub of continued research and exploration and as a consequence, sulphide reserves in the IPB are being continuously increased with new discoveries: Aguas Teñidas, Lagoa Salgada, Las Cruces, Migollas, Masa Valverde, Vallejin, Las Cruces, Semblana and Monte Branco, La Magdalena and Sesmarias. While today's mining activities are focused in massive and stockwork ores and confined to 7 Portuguese and Spanish districts: Aljustrel, Neves-Corvo, Sotiel-Migollas, Rio Tinto, Aznalcollar Los Frailes, Tharsis and Las Cruces, the IPB retains a large potential for non-traditional (or accessory ores) products. In light of the critical raw materials and the concepts of the circular economy, the IPB has the potential to be an important source of accessory metals; sourced from both primary and secondary ores and mine waste, that fall both in the strategic and critical domains. Metals like indium, selenium, germanium, rhenium and the precious metals are targets to seek in future exploration scenarios within the IPB, particularly in the Portuguese sector and in key near mining areas.RESUMO: A Faixa Piritosa Ibérica (FPI) é uma das mais importantes províncias de sulfuretos maciços do mundo e tem sido explorada durante mais de 5 000 anos. A sua rica história de mineração é conhecida por ter sido muito importante nos tempos Tartessianos e Romanos, onde o trabalho ocorreu principalmente sobre os jazigos aflorantes, nomeadamente nas suas zonas de oxidação e cimentação dos depósitos de ouro, prata e cobre. Mesmo após a extração contínua de metais por mais de 5000 anos, a FPI mantém reservas de metal excecionalmente elevadas. A FPI contempla hoje todo o seu potencial favorável à prospeção mineral, observando-se uma intensa atividade extrativa e, consequentemente, um aumento das reservas, patente em novas descobertas como Águas Teñidas, Lagoa Salgada, Las Cruces, Migollas, Masa Valverde, Vallejin, Las Cruces, Semblana e Monte Branco, La Madalena, Sesmarias e Elvira. Embora a lavra ativa esteja atualmente limitada a 7 concelhos portugueses e espanhóis como Aljustrel, Neves-Corvo, Sotiel-Migollas, Rio Tinto, Aznalcollar-Los Frailes, Tharsis e Las Cruces, a FPI mantém um grande potencial para produtos minerais não tradicionais (ou acessórios). À luz das matérias-primas críticas e dos conceitos da economia circular, a FPI tem o potencial para ser uma importante fonte de metais acessórios, que se inserem nos domínios estratégicos e críticos, os quais são observados quer em minérios primários e secundários, quer em escombreiras mineiras. Metais como índio, selénio, germânio, rénio e elementos preciosos são alvos a serem procurados em cenários futuros de prospeção dentro da FPI, em particular no seu setor português e, sobretudo, em áreas de near mining exploration.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Chatterbox

In the market, there are not many options or tools for people that once could speak. However, due to an accident or stroke, not only lost their voices and even some of their movements, but also sign language is not an option either. The issue is that whichever communication alternative that is available is either too expensive to use or too complicated for their actual situation such as google voice, notepads, general writing tools, etc. as each of them requires a little bit of work to manage. Therefore we intended to ease speech-impaired people’s lives by designing and developing an application that speaks for them by only one touch. It is a user friendly application, with different interfaces divided according to its category such as Emergency, Fun, Greetings, Feelings and Daily Chat. Each interface displays its own set of buttons with different sentences, and each button plays out its corresponding sentence as soon as it is tapped. The sentences were recorded by us, applying different intonations so, it would give the application a better humanized form. We hope to make their lives easier, and give them back the possibility of expressing themselves in an easier way and keep up a steady conversation

Geostatistical simulations with heterotopic hard and soft data without modeling the linear model of coregionalization

Most mining decisions are based on models estimated/simulated given the information obtained from samples. During the exploration stage, samples are commonly taken using diamond drill holes which are accurate and precise. These samples are considered hard data. In the production stage, new samples are added. These last are cheaper and more abundant than the drill hole samples, but imprecise and are here named as soft data. Usually hard and soft data are not sampled at the same locations, they form a heterotopic dataset. This article proposes a framework for geostatistical simulation with completely heterotopic soft data. The simulation proceeds in two steps. First, the variable of interest at the locations where soft data are available is simulated. The local conditional distributions built at these locations consider both hard and soft data and are obtained using simple cokriging with the intrinsic coregionalization model. Second, the variable of interest in the entire simulation grid using the original and previously simulated values at soft data locations is simulated. The results show that the information from soft data improved both the accuracy and precision of the simulated models. The proposed framework is illustrated by a case study with data obtained from an underground copper mine

Natural history and survival in stage 1 Val30Met transthyretin familial amyloid polyneuropathy

OBJECTIVE: To assess the natural history and treatment effect on survival among patients with transthyretin-associated familial amyloid polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP) stage 1 Val30Met. METHODS: Multi-institutional, hospital-based study of patients with TTR-FAP Val30Met prospectively followed up until December 2016, grouped into untreated (n = 1,771), liver transplant (LTx)-treated (n = 957), or tafamidis-treated (n = 432) cohorts. Standardized mortality ratios, Kaplan-Meier, and Cox methods were used to estimate excess mortality, survival, and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for all-cause mortality. RESULTS: Disease-modifying treatments decreased TTR-FAP excess mortality from 10 to 4 (standardized mortality ratio 3.92, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.64-5.59). Median overall survival of untreated and LTx-treated cohorts was 11.61 (95% CI 11.14-11.87) and 24.73 years (95% CI 22.90-27.09), respectively, and was not reached in the tafamidis-treated cohort (maximum follow-up, 10 years). Both disease-modifying treatments improved survival. Among early-onset patients (younger than 50 years of age), tafamidis reduced the mortality risk compared with untreated patients by 91% (HR 0.09, 95% CI 0.03-0.25, p < 0.001) and with LTx-treated patients by 63% (HR 0.37, 95% CI 0.14-1.00, p = 0.050). Previous tafamidis treatment did not affect mortality risk after LTx (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.25-2.78, p = 0.763). Among late-onset patients (50 years and older), tafamidis reduced mortality risk by 82% compared with untreated patients (HR 0.18, 95% CI 0.06-0.49, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: LTx and tafamidis convey substantial survival benefits, but TTR-FAP mortality remains higher than in the general population. These results strongly reinforce the importance of timely diagnosis and earlier treatment, boosting the pursuit for an increased life expectancy. CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE: This study provides Class III evidence that for patients with stage 1 Val30Met TTR-FAP, LTx and tafamidis increase survival

Occurrence of pseudoparasite coccidians in carnivores

O objetivo deste trabalho foi relatar a ocorrência de pseudoparasitos em três espécies de carnívoros (Felis catus, Lycalopex gymnocercus e Canis lupus familiaris) no sul do Brasil. Amostras de fezes colhidas em exame de rotina dos animais foram processadas através da técnica de centrífugo-flutuação com sulfato de zinco. Em microscópio óptico foram detectados oocistos esporulados e não esporulados de coccídios da família Adeleidae em gato doméstico e graxaim-do-campo. Nas fezes do canídeo foram encontrados oocistos de Eimeria sp. Ambos protozoários não são patogênicos para estas espécies hospedeiras, porém, podem ser facilmente confundidos com outros coccídeos virulentosquando não estão esporulados.  The aim of this research study was to report the occurrence of pseudoparasites in three species of carnivores (Felis catus, Lycalopex gymnocercus and Canis lupus familiaris) in the southern region of Brazil. Fecal samples collected in the routine examination of the animals were analyzed by the centrifugal flotation technique with zinc sulfate. Sporulated and nonsporulated oocysts of coccidia of the family Adeleidae were observed in the feces of the domestic cat and pampas-fox. Oocysts of Eimeria sp. were present in the dog feces. Although not pathogenic for these host species, these oocysts can be easily confounded with other virulent coccidian when present in their nonsporulated form