Blog Style Classification: Refining Affective Blogs

In the constantly growing blogosphere with no restrictions on form or topic, a number of writing styles and genres have emerged. Recognition and classification of these styles has become significant for information processing with an aim to improve blog search or sentiment mining. One of the main issues in this field is detection of informative and affective articles. However, such differentiation does not suffice today. In this paper we extend the differentiation and suggest a fine-grained set of subcategories for affective articles. We propose and evaluate a classification method employing novel lexical, morphological, lightweight syntactic and structural features of written text. The results show that our method outperforms the existing approaches

A Systematic Review of Physicians' Survival Predictions in Terminally Ill Cancer Patients

Objective: To systematically review the accuracy of physicians’ clinical predictions of survival in terminally ill cancer patients. Data sources: Cochrane Library, Medline (1996-2000), Embase, Current Contents, and Cancerlit databases as well as hand searching. Study selection: Studies were included if a physician’s temporal clinical prediction of survival (CPS) and the actual survival (AS) for terminally ill cancer patients were available for statistical analysis. Study quality was assessed by using a critical appraisal tool produced by the local health authority. Data synthesis: Raw data were pooled and analysed with regression and other multivariate techniques. Results: 17 published studies were identified; 12 met the inclusion criteria, and 8 were evaluable, providing 1563 individual prediction-survival dyads. CPS was generally overoptimistic (median CPS 42 days, median AS 29 days); it was correct to within one week in 25% of cases and overestimated survival by at least four weeks in 27%. The longer the CPS the greater the variability in AS. Although agreement between CPS and AS was poor (weighted k 0.36), the two were highly significantly associated after log transformation (Spearman rank correlation 0.60, P < 0.001). Consideration of performance status, symptoms, and use of steroids improved the accuracy of the CPS, although the additional value was small. Heterogeneity of the studies’ results precluded a comprehensive meta-analysis. Conclusions: Although clinicians consistently overestimate survival, their predictions are highly correlated with actual survival; the predictions have discriminatory ability even if they are miscalibrated. Clinicians caring for patients with terminal cancer need to be aware of their tendency to overestimate survival, as it may affect patients’ prospects for achieving a good death. Accurate prognostication models incorporating clinical prediction of survival are needed.Sociolog

Alternative tilknytningsformer for arbeid i privat helse- og omsorgssektor

Hensikten med denne oppgaven er å undersøke fordeler og ulemper i forbindelse med fleksibel organisering. Oppgaven er avgrenset til å undersøke bruken av alternative tilknytningsformer i den private helse- og omsorgssektoren i Norge. Aleris Ungplan & BOI, som er en del av det private helsekonsernet Aleris, benyttes i denne forbindelse som forskningsobjekt. Oppgavens hovedproblemstilling er: Hvilke fordeler og ulemper kan Aleris Ungplan & BOI møte i forbindelse med deres bruk av tilknytningsformer? Med denne problemstillingen er hensikten å gjøre en redegjørelse av fordeler og ulemper knyttet til fleksibel organisering både for ledelsen og for de som jobber i systemet. For å svare på denne problemstillingen er det benyttet kvalitative metoder. Datainnsamlingen har foregått gjennom åtte kvalitative dybdeintervjuer med informanter tilknyttet Aleris Ungplan & BOI. Videre er informasjonen fra disse intervjuene analysert og tolket. Undersøkelsens resultater viser at Aleris Ungplan & BOI i stor grad baserer sin virksomhet på å leie inn selvstendig næringsdrivende. Dette innebærer at bedriften oppnår stor fleksibilitet og sparer personalkostnader. Organiseringen byr imidlertid på uforutsigbarhet i tilgangen på arbeidskraft. De selvstendig næringsdrivende oppnår også høy grad av fleksibilitet knyttet til en fleksibel arbeidstid. Samtidig medfører dette uforutsigbarhet i forbindelse med trygghet for arbeid og inntekt

A reliability and validity study of the Palliative Performance Scale

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) was first introduced in1996 as a new tool for measurement of performance status in palliative care. PPS has been used in many countries and has been translated into other languages.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study evaluated the reliability and validity of PPS. A web-based, case scenarios study with a test-retest format was used to determine reliability. Fifty-three participants were recruited and randomly divided into two groups, each evaluating 11 cases at two time points. The validity study was based on the content validation of 15 palliative care experts conducted over telephone interviews, with discussion on five themes: PPS as clinical assessment tool, the usefulness of PPS, PPS scores affecting decision making, the problems in using PPS, and the adequacy of PPS instruction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The intraclass correlation coefficients for absolute agreement were 0.959 and 0.964 for Group 1, at Time-1 and Time-2; 0.951 and 0.931 for Group 2, at Time-1 and Time-2 respectively. Results showed that the participants were consistent in their scoring over the two times, with a mean Cohen's kappa of 0.67 for Group 1 and 0.71 for Group 2. In the validity study, all experts agreed that PPS is a valuable clinical assessment tool in palliative care. Many of them have already incorporated PPS as part of their practice standard.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of the reliability study demonstrated that PPS is a reliable tool. The validity study found that most experts did not feel a need to further modify PPS and, only two experts requested that some performance status measures be defined more clearly. Areas of PPS use include prognostication, disease monitoring, care planning, hospital resource allocation, clinical teaching and research. PPS is also a good communication tool between palliative care workers.</p

Idiopathic Palmar Fasciitis with Polyarthritis Syndrome

A 31-yr-old Korean woman was presented with 4-month history of bilateral hand swelling and stiffness. On clinical examination, she had a painful synovitis of both hands, wrists, knees and ankles. The radiologic and histological examinations confirmed it with palmar fasciitis and polyarthritis syndrome (PFPAS). PFPAS is an uncommon disorder characterized by progressive flexion contractures of both hands, inflammatory fasciitiis, fibrosis, and a generalized inflammatory arthritis. Although most reported cases of PFPAS have been associated with various malignancies, our patient have not been associated with malignancy during 24 months follow up period from her first symptom onset. Her symptoms were improved with moderate dose of corticosteroid and she is currently taking prednisone 5 mg daily without any evidence for internal malignancy. We present here in a young Korean patient with idiopathic PFPAS who was successfully treated with administration of corticosteroid

Corporate social responsibility : an exploratory study of CSR perspectives in Singapore.

This applied research project is exploratory in nature and it is meant to provide a starting point for future research on the phenomenon of reconciling expectations on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) best practices. CSR has evolved over the years and has become a key issue for business entities in today’s business world particularly in Asia where CSR adoption has been making steady gains. CSR’s values to local firms in staying relevant and competitive in Singapore’s knowledge based economy was one of our primary motivations in carrying out this study. The main goal of our research is to find out the varying degree of similarity/differences in consumer and managers’ expectations with regards to CSR best practices of Singapore based companies. This was done through an extensive literature review, CSR policy analysis as well as surveying the public and managers on their perceptions of CSR best practices. Despite CSR being a relatively established topic, there have been few studies carried out in the Asian context and Singapore. Furthermore, existing data on CSR has largely been limited to CSR best practices considering the manager’s perspective solely. In addition, our group also aimed to ascertain how key findings regarding perspectives from CSR best practices can aid implementation of CSR in Singapore. In order to better incorporate what we found out through existing literature and our own study, we conceived an adopted framework on how CSR could be implemented based on the findings from our research.BUSINES

A systematic review of physicians' survival predictions in terminally ill cancer patients

Objective To systematically review the accuracy of physicians' clinical predictions of survival in terminally ill cancer patients. Data sources Cochrane Library, Medline (1996-2000), Embase, Current Contents, and Cancerlit databases as well as hand searching. Study selection Studies were included if a physician's temporal clinical prediction of survival (CPS) and the actual survival (AS) for terminally ill cancer patients were available for statistical analysis. Study quality was assessed by using a critical appraisal tool produced by the local health authority. Data synthesis Raw data were pooled and analysed with regression and other multivariate techniques. Results 17 published studies were identified; 12 met the inclusion criteria, and 8 were evaluable, providing 1563 individual prediction-survival dyads. CPS was generally overoptimistic (median CPS 42 days, median AS 29 days); it was correct to within one week in 25% of cases and overestimated survival by at least four weeks in 27%. The longer the CPS the greater the variability in AS. Although agreement between CPS and AS was poor (weighted κ 0.36), the two were highly significantly associated after log transformation (Spearman rank correlation 0.60, P < 0.001). Consideration of performance status, symptoms, and use of steroids improved the accuracy of the CPS, although the additional value was small. Heterogeneity of the studies' results precluded a comprehensive meta-analysis. Conclusions Although clinicians consistently overestimate survival, their predictions are highly correlated with actual survival; the predictions have discriminatory ability even if they are miscalibrated. Clinicians caring for patients with terminal cancer need to be aware of their tendency to overestimate survival, as it may affect patients' prospects for achieving a good death. Accurate prognostication models incorporating clinical prediction of survival are needed

Rapid prototyping of polymer-based rolled-up microfluidic devices

10.3390/mi9100516Micromachines91051