AI-Enhanced Hybrid Decision Management

The Decision Model and Notation (DMN) modeling language allows the precise specification of business decisions and business rules. DMN is readily understandable by business users involved in decision management. However, as the models get complex, the cognitive abilities of humans threaten manual maintainability and comprehensibility. Proper design of the decision logic thus requires comprehensive automated analysis of e.g., all possible cases the decision shall cover; correlations between inputs and outputs; and the importance of inputs for deriving the output. In the paper, the authors explore the mutual benefits of combining human-driven DMN decision modeling with the computational power of Artificial Intelligence for DMN model analysis and improved comprehension. The authors propose a model-driven approach that uses DMN models to generate Machine Learning (ML) training data and show, how the trained ML models can inform human decision modelers by means of superimposing the feature importance within the original DMN models. An evaluation with multiple real DMN models from an insurance company evaluates the feasibility and the utility of the approach

The relation of ABO blood group to the severity of coronavirus disease: A cross-sectional study from a tertiary care hospital in Karachi

Background: Blood groups are considered to have an impact on the occurrence and severity of coronavirus disease. While among Chinese and Caucasian, blood group O individuals were less and group A were more likely to have severe disease and mortality, data on South Asians aren’t available. Objective: This study aimed to find out the association of disease severity with blood group among coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.Materials and methodology: Data were collected on a predesigned questionnaire containing details of patient demographics, medical comorbidities, clinical presentation, and laboratory parameters. Multiple logistic regression was used to determine the association of the blood group with the severity of coronavirus disease.Result: Among the study participants, blood group B has the highest distribution (39.8%), followed by O (30.0), A (21.9%), and AB (8.1%). About three-fourths (69.9%) had mild to moderate disease while 30.0% had severe disease. Age, gender, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and hemoglobin level were all associated with disease severity among COVID-19 patients in univariate analysis on P-value for selection (Conclusion: Blood groups don’t have any role in forecasting the severity of coronavirus disease. However, the male gender and diabetics are prone to have severe disease

Diabetes mellitus does not predict discharge in hospitalized patients with acute pyelonephritis: A study from Karachi, Pakistan

Introduction: The incidence of acute pyelonephritis (APN) in the diabetic population is comparatively higher and tends to be more complicated, with serious outcomes. Although complicated pyelonephritis (PN) needs hospital admission and intravenous antibiotics, the magnitude of hospital stay due to comorbidities is limited. This study\u27s aim was to assess the impact of diabetes mellitus on length of hospital stay among patients with PN.Methods: We did a retrospective data review of 520 randomly selected hospitalized patients of PN from March 2015 to December 2019 from a tertiary care center. Electronic medical records were used for identifying medical conditions through ICD-10 coding. Length of stay (LOS) was categorized as \u3c five days and ≥ five days. Chi‐ squared tests were used to compare categorical parameters. Logistic regression models were used for multivariate analyses.Results: The study included 520 patients with PN; 194 (37.3 %) men and 326 (62.7%) women. Overall, there were 353 (67.8 %) and 167 (32.1 %) patients with LOS \u3c five and ≥ five days respectively. Most of the patients had lower urinary tract symptoms (90%); among them, the majority (92%) were discharged within five days. Likewise, half of the patients had diabetes (51.2); among them, 53% were discharged after five days. Older age (OR:1.7, 95%CI: 1.1 - 2.6), upper urinary tract symptoms (OR:1.6, 95%CI: 1.1 - 2.4), lower urinary tract symptoms (OR:1.9, 95%CI: 1.1 - 3.5), creatinine greater than 1.5 mg/dl (OR:1.6, 95% CI: 1.1 - 2.4) was positively associated with LOS ≥ 5 days after adjusting for other covariates. Diabetes mellitus was not found to be associated with LOS ≥ 5 days (OR: 0.9, 95%CI: 0.8 - 1.5).Conclusion: In patients with acute PN, diabetes mellitus is not independently associated with prolonged hospital stay beyond five days

trans-Cyclo­hexane-1,4-diyl bis­(4-nitro­phen­yl) dicarbonate

In the title crystal structure, C20H18N2O10, there are two independent mol­ecules, both of which lie on crystallographic inversion centres. In one mol­ecule the 4-nitro­phenyl dicarbonate groups are substituted in equatorial (A eq) positions of the chair-form cyclo­hexane ring while in the other mol­ecule the substitution is axial (B ax). The dihedral angles between the atoms of the symmetry-unique carbonate group (O=CO2—) and benzene ring for each mol­ecule are 47.3 (1)° for A eq and 11.7 (2)° for B ax. In B ax, this facilitates the formation of a weak intra­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bond, while the packing is stabilized by weak inter­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions

ADVENT OF AUGMENTED REALITY EXPERIENCE IN RETAIL AND ONLINE SHOPPING AND ITS INFLUENCING SIGNIFICANCE IN FUTURE

Augmented Reality (AR) is a trending technology that augments or superimposes an image generated by a computer system virtually into the real world environment for the user’s viewpoint using a smart phone or other hand held devices. AR shows recent advancements in the shopping domain with various implementation trails and refinement. The simplicity and flexibility in online shopping where people stay in their own place and do shopping brought a great challenge to retail shopping environment today. Retail stores are now struggling a lot to bring in the customers and the foot traffic has been greatly reduced due to which online sales are boosting and retail sales are stalling. This necessitates to bring new technological innovations to offline shopping to attract people. With the use of AR, it is possible to merge digital component to physical products in the store to stimulate the engagement of the shopping experience with more fun and joy. On the other hand, in the online shopping, though user reviews and product showcase aids the customers to analyze the quality, look and feel of diverse products, the buyer still cannot see how exactly the product fits in a real environment or how it works. Here plays AR a vital role in online shopping where it uses animations and visualization techniques to offer more value to their shoppers virtually aiding to see exactly the look of the product in user environment. This paper explains the advancement of AR in both retail and online shopping of various product domains with an implementation model of ShopAR for Online shopping and AR significance in near future

Di-tert-butyl cyclo­hex-2-ene-1,4-diyl dicarbonate

In the title mol­ecule, C16H26O6, the central cyclo­hexene ring is in a half-chair conformation. The carbonyl groups are in a trans arrangement with respect to each other and the dihedral angle between the mean planes of the carbonate groups is 10.8 (2)°

2,5-Dimethyl­hexane-2,5-diyl bis­(4-nitro­phen­yl) dicarbonate

The title structure, C22H24N2O10, contains two independent centrosymmetric mol­ecules. The only significant difference between the mol­ecules is the dihedral angle between the unique carbonate group (–O—CO2–) and the benzene ring, the values being 77.35 (8) and 66.42 (8)°. The crystal structure is stabilized by weak inter­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

HIV/AIDS in Pakistan: the battle begins

Pakistan, the second most populous Muslim nation in the world, has started to finally experience and confront the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The country had been relatively safe from any indigenous HIV cases for around two decades, with most of the infections being attributable to deported HIV positive migrants from the Gulf States. However, the virus finally seems to have found a home-base, as evidenced by the recent HIV outbreaks among the injection drug user community. Extremely high-risk behavior has also been documented among Hijras (sex workers) and long-distance truck drivers. The weak government response coupled with the extremely distressing social demographics of this South-Asian republic also helps to compound the problem. The time is ripe now to prepare in advance, to take the appropriate measures to curtail further spread of the disease. If this opportunity is not utilized right now, little if at all could be done later