Incorporating Personalization Features in a Hospital-Stay Summary Generation System

Most of the currently available health resources contain vast amount of information that are created by keeping the “general” population in mind, which in reality, might not be useful for anyone. One approach to providing comprehensible health information to patients is to generate summaries that are personalized to each individual. This paper details the design of a personalized hospital-stay summary generation system that tailors its content to the patient’s understanding of medical terminologies and their level of engagement in improving their own health. Our summaries were found to cover around 80% of the health concepts that were considered as important by a doctor or a nurse. An online survey conducted on 150 participants verified that our algorithm’s interpretation of the personalization parameters is representative of that of a larger population

Predicting the potential distribution and habitat variables associated with pangolins in Nepal

Pangolins are highly-threatened due to illegal hunting and poaching, and by the loss, degradation, and fragmentation of their habitats. In Nepal, effective conservation actions for pangolins are scarce due to limited information on the distribution of pangolins in many areas of the country. To identify the nationwide distribution of pangolins in Nepal, and assess the environmental variables associated with their habitat, we conducted an extensive literature review to collate data from previous studies, canvassed information from key informant interviews and expert opinion, and conducted transect surveys and sign surveys. The occurrence of pangolins was recorded based on sightings and indirect signs (such as burrows, digs, tracks, and scats) along 115 belt transects of 500-m length with a fixed width of 50-m, and habitat parameters were surveyed using 347 quadrats of 10 m*10 m. Pangolin presence was confirmed from 61 out of 75 districts from the eastern to the far western parts of the country. The highest frequency of burrows (74%) was observed in the forested habitat constituting brown soil with medium texture (0.02–2 mm) within an elevation range of 500–1500 m above sea level. Logistic regression suggested that the occurrence of pangolin was highly influenced by ground cover and canopy cover of 50–75%, litter depth, and the distance to termite mounds and roads. We used 4136 occurrence GPS points of pangolin burrows that were compiled and collected from the literature review and field surveys in order to predict the potential habitat distribution of pangolin using maximum entropy algorithm (MaxEnt 3.4.1). The model predicted 15.2% (22,393 km2) of the total land of Nepal as potentially suitable habitat for pangolin, with 38.3% (8574 km2) of potential habitat in the eastern region, followed by 37.6% (8432 km2) in the central and 24.1% (5,387 km2) in the western regions. The results of this study present a national baseline for pangolin distribution and serve as an important document for developing and executing conservation actions and management plans for the long-term conservation of pangolins in Nepal

Generating Personalized Hospital-Stay Summaries for Patients

Comprehending medical information is a challenging task, especially for people who have not received formal medical education. When patients are discharged from a hospital, they are provided with lengthy medical documents that contain intricate terms. Studies have shown that if people do not understand the content of their health documents, they will neither look for new information regarding their illness, nor will they take actions to prevent or recover from their health issue. In addition, the discharge notes and education materials are usually developed using a “one size fits all” approach and by keeping the “general” population in mind. However, in reality, not many people can benefit from such documents. The primary objective of this research is to provide hospital-stay information to patients in a form that they can understand. In this thesis, I present a framework for automatically generating textual summaries of hospital stays. First, I developed a metric for determining the complexity of medical terms and supplement difficult terms with explanations. Second, based on the research on patient-centered care and patient education, I identified the metrics that can be used for capturing a patient’s familiarity with health information and their level of motivation to get involved in their own care. Third, I developed a mechanism for synthesizing the scores from these metrics, as well as my findings from the analysis of a collection of interviews where patients have recounted their health experiences. Fourth, I developed an algorithm that generates the summaries. The summaries my framework produces were found to cover around 80% of the health concepts that were considered as important by a doctor or a nurse. An online survey conducted among 150 participants verified that my algorithm’s interpretation of the personalization parameters is representative of that of a larger population

Tigers in the Terai: Strong evidence for meta-population dynamics contributing to tiger recovery and conservation in the Terai Arc Landscape - Fig 2

<p>Minimum Convex Polygon (MCP) from multiyear camera trap surveys carried out in a) core area of Suklaphanta National Park; b) Babai valley within Bardia National Park.</p

Fitted polynomial growth curve based on 3%, 10%, 21% growth rates regressed on minimum population size (M_t+1) of camera trap tiger population surveyed in between 2009 and 2014 in core area of Suklaphanta National Park.

<p>Fitted polynomial growth curve based on 3%, 10%, 21% growth rates regressed on minimum population size (M_t+1) of camera trap tiger population surveyed in between 2009 and 2014 in core area of Suklaphanta National Park.</p

A male tiger captured along the Bardia-Katerniaghat forest matrix connected through Khata corridor forest in the western part of Terai Arc Landscape.

<p>A male tiger captured along the Bardia-Katerniaghat forest matrix connected through Khata corridor forest in the western part of Terai Arc Landscape.</p