Machine learning for the diagnosis of early stage diabetes using temporal glucose profiles

Machine learning shows remarkable success for recognizing patterns in data. Here we apply the machine learning (ML) for the diagnosis of early stage diabetes, which is known as a challenging task in medicine. Blood glucose levels are tightly regulated by two counter-regulatory hormones, insulin and glucagon, and the failure of the glucose homeostasis leads to the common metabolic disease, diabetes mellitus. It is a chronic disease that has a long latent period the complicates detection of the disease at an early stage. The vast majority of diabetics result from that diminished effectiveness of insulin action. The insulin resistance must modify the temporal profile of blood glucose. Thus we propose to use ML to detect the subtle change in the temporal pattern of glucose concentration. Time series data of blood glucose with sufficient resolution is currently unavailable, so we confirm the proposal using synthetic data of glucose profiles produced by a biophysical model that considers the glucose regulation and hormone action. Multi-layered perceptrons, convolutional neural networks, and recurrent neural networks all identified the degree of insulin resistance with high accuracy above $85\%$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figur

Kinematic Cusps: Determining the Missing Particle Mass at Colliders

In many extensions of the SM, neutral massive stable particles (dark matter candidates) are produced at colliders in pairs due to an exact symmetry called a "parity". These particles escape detection, rendering their mass measurement difficult. In the pair production of such particles via a specific ("antler") decay topology, kinematic cusp structures are present in the invariant mass and angular distributions of the observable particles. Together with the end-points, such cusps can be used to measure the missing particle mass and the intermediate particle mass in the decay chain. Our simulation of a benchmark scenario in a Z' supersymmetric model shows that the cusp feature survives under the consideration of detector simulation and the standard model backgrounds. This technique for determining missing particle masses should be invaluable in the search for new physics at the LHC and future lepton colliders.Comment: final version in Phys. Lett.

Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps in older adults : clinical presentation, pathophysiology, and comorbidity

Purpose of Review Chronic rhinosinusitis and nasal polyps (CRSwNP) is a common condition that significantly affects patients' life. This work aims to provide an up-to-date overview of CRSwNP in older adults, focusing on its aging-related clinical presentations, pathophysiology, and comorbidity associations including asthma. Recent Findings Recent large population-based studies using nasal endoscopy have shown that CRSwNP is a mostly late-onset disease. Age-related changes in physiologic functions, including nasal epithelial barrier dysfunction, may underlie the incidence and different clinical presentations of CRSwNP in older adults. However, there is still a paucity of evidence on the effect of aging on phenotypes and endotypes of CRSwNP. Meanwhile, late-onset asthma is a major comorbid condition in patients with CRSwNP; they frequently present with type 2 inflammatory signatures that are refractory to conventional treatments when they are comorbid. However, as they are more commonly non-atopic, causative factors other than classical atopic sensitization, such as Staphylococcus aureus specific IgE sensitization, are suggested to drive the type 2 inflammation. There are additional comorbidity associations in older patients with CRSwNP, including those with chronic otitis media and head and neck malignancy. Age is a major determinant for the incidence and clinical presentations of CRSwNP. Given the heterogeneity in phenotypes and endotypes, longitudinal investigations are warranted to elucidate the effects of aging on CRSwNP

A Design of MAC Model Based on the Separation of Duties and Data Coloring: DSDC-MAC

Among the access control methods for database security, there is Mandatory Access Control (MAC) model in which the security level is set to both the subject and the object to enhance the security control. Legacy MAC models have focused only on one thing, either confidentiality or integrity. Thus, it can cause collisions between security policies in supporting confidentiality and integrity simultaneously. In addition, they do not provide a granular security class policy of subjects and objects in terms of subjects\u27 roles or tasks. In this paper, we present the security policy of Bell_LaPadula Model (BLP) model and Biba model as one complemented policy. In addition, Duties Separation and Data Coloring (DSDC)-MAC model applying new data coloring security method is proposed to enable granular access control from the viewpoint of Segregation of Duty (SoD). The case study demonstrated that the proposed modeling work maintains the practicality through the design of Human Resources management System. The proposed model in this study is suitable for organizations like military forces or intelligence agencies where confidential information should be carefully handled. Furthermore, this model is expected to protect systems against malicious insiders and improve the confidentiality and integrity of data

Consumer behavior changes across income levels : meat market analysis

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on October 22, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Dissertation advisor: Dr. Scott BrownVita.Ph.D. University of Missouri-Columbia, 2011."May 2011"This study intends to test how consumer behavior changes across income levels using time series data of the meat markets in Korea and the U.S. An income growth is one of the most significant and powerful trends in the modern economy and expected to continue its trend in the future. So finding relationships between income growth and consumer behavior can offer a higher level of understanding of both the current and future demand. Three relationships are found in the Korean and American meat market: (1) Since meat products are more desirable, even though meat is more expensive than other food, substitution of meat for grain appears to occur at a low income level. As a consequence, they have a property of being luxury goods when income is low and eventually become a necessity as income rises. (2) As income growth occurs, it makes the relative price and the expenditure share for meat to become smaller. These diminished prices and shares are likely to make consumers feel less sensitive to changes in price or income. As a result, price and income elasticities become smaller in absolute value as income rises. (3) Consumption is expanded as income rises and this expansion follows the order of urgency. A good on the expansion frontier faces severe competition in terms of the marginal utility. As a result, a good for which demand increases with incomes has a high possibility to maintain its elasticities even though income rises.Includes bibliographical reference

Socioeconomic Status and Health: Focusing on Co-Morbidity of Self Rated Health and Psychological Well-Being

Despite the well-documented associations between social and economic positions and diverse health conditions, the necessity and urgency of exploring the social and economic consequences of an array of health dimensions together have been proposed as a critical area of research to fully appreciate socioeconomic-health inequalities. The overall objective of the present study is to estimate the variance and covariation of two dimensions of health, i.e., self-rated health and psychological well-being, simultaneously, with specific attention to the social and economic influences, utilizing the multivariate response model. We use the 2005 National Health Interview Survey. Primary results indicate that variance in both self-rated health and psychological distress becomes attenuated with the adjustment of social and economic status, although variation in each outcome remains unexplained to some substantial degree. In addition, there is a strong and positive relationship between these two health outcomes in that individuals who are unhealthy tend also to have poor psychological resources (correlation = .34) and the substantial portion of co-morbidity between health conditions is attributable to the social and economic factors (about 37%)

China's Dilemma: Economic Growth, the Environment and Climate Change

China’s Dilemma—Economic Growth, the Environment and Climate Change examines the challenges China will have to confront in order to maintain rapid growth while coping with the global financial turbulence, some rising socially destabilising tensions such as income inequality, an over-exploited environment and the long-term pressures of global warming. China’s Dilemma discusses key questions that will have an impact on China’s growth path and offers some in-depth analyses as to how China could confront these challenges. The authors address the effect of the global credit crunch and financial shocks on China’s economic growth; China’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and emissions reduction schemes; the environmental consequences of foreign direct investment in China; the relationship between air pollution and mortality; the effect of climate change on agricultural output; the coal industry’s compliance with tougher regulations; and the constraints water shortages may impose on China’s economy. It also emphasises the importance of managing the rising demand for energy to moderate oil price increases and placating domestic and international concerns about global warming. In the thirty years since China started on the path of reform, it has emerged as one of the largest and most dynamic economies in the world. This carries with it the responsibility to balance the requirements of key industries that are driving its development with the need to ensure that its growth is both equitable and sustainable. China’s Dilemma highlights key lessons learned from the past thirty years of reform in order to pave the way for balanced and sustained growth in the future