Audit and AI: Can Artificial Intelligence Restore Public Trust?

Due to the fallout from a series of corporate fraud scandals in the late 2000s, the auditing world has lost much of the public trust that is very important to the profession. Much of the value of an audit opinion is determined by the trust the public places in the auditors behind the opinion. Without trust in the auditors, the audit opinion has very little value. The recent increase in the usage of artificial intelligence (AI) in many industries presents a solution to the problem of auditors. Increased usage of AI in the audit process has the potential to better meet public demand for an audit as well as restore public trust

Evaluating Blackbird Behavioral Response Toward Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) : Exploiting Antipredator Behavior to Enhance Avoidance

Animals respond to nonlethal forms of human disturbance using behavior strategies adapted to detect, avoid, and evade natural predators. This phenomenon suggests antipredator behavior can be exploited to optimize efficacy of wildlife management tools such as visual deterrents. According to models of antipredator theory, wildlife managers could encourage animals to abandon a resource patch in zones of human-wildlife conflict by enhancing perceived predation risk associated with disturbance stimuli. One human-wildlife conflict of interest is the economic loss and human safety hazards caused by birds. For example, blackbirds (Icteridae) pose a significant risk to the commercial aviation industry through bird strikes and to agriculture through crop predation. Several nonlethal frightening devices have been used in an attempt to reduce negative impacts of large blackbird flocks with varying effectiveness, thus the need for new or optimized tools remains. A promising tool in the field of wildlife damage management is the unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which provides a dynamic object able to overcome mobility limitations faced by other nonlethal deterrents. We intend to evaluate antipredator response of blackbirds toward two UAS platforms. We will compare a multirotor quadcopter UAS with a radiocontrolled (RC) predator model. Current UASs show promise as precision agriculture tools and are easier to fly, but may not elicit an antipredator response due to lack of similarity with natural predators. We hypothesize that blackbirds will assess platforms with different intensities of perceived predation risk, and as a result, initiate flight at farther distances from the platform perceived as more threatening. Our objectives are to 1) compare the response of captive red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) to a multirotor quadcopter UAS and a RC predator model approaching at direct and overhead trajectories; and 2) approach wild flocks of red-winged blackbirds to gauge response of free-ranging birds toward both UAS platforms. The results of this study will help develop UASs as potential hazing tools to disperse and deter birds from areas of human-wildlife conflict (i.e., airports, agricultural areas, and municipalities)

Variable Selection in Covariate Dependent Random Partition Models: an Application to Urinary Tract Infection

Lower urinary tract symptoms can indicate the presence of urinary tract infection (UTI), a condition that if it becomes chronic requires expensive and time consuming care as well as leading to reduced quality of life. Detecting the presence and gravity of an infection from the earliest symptoms is then highly valuable. Typically, white blood cell (WBC) count measured in a sample of urine is used to assess UTI. We consider clinical data from 1341 patients in their first visit in which UTI (i.e. WBC ≥ 1) is diagnosed. In addition, for each patient, a clinical profile of 34 symptoms was recorded. In this paper, we propose a Bayesian nonparametric regression model based on the Dirichlet process prior aimed at providing the clinicians with a meaningful clustering of the patients based on both the WBC (response variable) and possible patterns within the symptoms profiles (covariates). This is achieved by assuming a probability model for the symptoms as well as for the response variable. To identify the symptoms most associated to UTI, we specify a spike and slab base measure for the regression coefficients: this induces dependence of symptoms selection on cluster assignment. Posterior inference is performed through Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods

Supervising the Supervisors—Procedural Training and Supervision in Internal Medicine Residency

At teaching hospitals, bedside procedures (paracentesis, thoracentesis, lumbar puncture, arthrocentesis and central venous catheter insertion) are performed by junior residents and supervised by senior peers. Residents’ perceptions about supervision or how often peer supervision produces unsafe clinical situations are unknown. To examine the experience and practice patterns of residents performing bedside procedures. Cross-sectional e-mail survey of 653 internal medicine (IM) residents at seven California teaching hospitals. Surveys asked questions in three areas: (1) resident experience performing procedures: numbers of procedures performed and whether they received other (e.g., simulator) training; (2) resident comfort performing and supervising procedures; (3) resident reports of their current level of supervision doing procedures, experience with complications as well as perceptions of factors that may have contributed to complications. Three hundred sixty-seven (56%) of the residents responded. Most PGY1 residents had performed fewer than five of any of the procedures, but most PGY-3 residents had performed at least ten by the end of their training. Resident comfort for each procedure increased with the number of procedures performed (p < 0.001). Although residents reported that peer supervision happened often, they also reported high rates of supervising a procedure before feeling comfortable with proper technique. The majority of residents (64%) reported at least one complication and did not feel supervision would have prevented complications, even though many reported complications represented technique- or preparation-related problems. Residents report low levels of comfort and experience with procedures, and frequently report supervising prior to feeling comfortable. Our findings suggest a need to examine best practices for procedural supervision of trainees

Author Correction: Cross-ancestry genome-wide association analysis of corneal thickness strengthens link between complex and Mendelian eye diseases

Emmanuelle Souzeau, who contributed to analysis of data, was inadvertently omitted from the author list in the originally published version of this Article. This has now been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article

Cross-ancestry genome-wide association analysis of corneal thickness strengthens link between complex and Mendelian eye diseases

Central corneal thickness (CCT) is a highly heritable trait associated with complex eye diseases such as keratoconus and glaucoma. We perform a genome-wide association meta-analysis of CCT and identify 19 novel regions. In addition to adding support for known connective tissue-related pathways, pathway analyses uncover previously unreported gene sets. Remarkably, >20% of the CCT-loci are near or within Mendelian disorder genes. These included FBN1, ADAMTS2 and TGFB2 which associate with connective tissue disorders (Marfan, Ehlers-Danlos and Loeys-Dietz syndromes), and the LUM-DCN-KERA gene complex involved in myopia, corneal dystrophies and cornea plana. Using index CCT-increasing variants, we find a significant inverse correlation in effect sizes between CCT and keratoconus (r =-0.62, P = 5.30 × 10-5) but not between CCT and primary open-angle glaucoma (r =-0.17, P = 0.2). Our findings provide evidence for shared genetic influences between CCT and keratoconus, and implicate candidate genes acting in collagen and extracellular matrix regulation

Genetic determinants of telomere length from 109,122 ancestrally diverse whole-genome sequences in TOPMed

Genetic studies on telomere length are important for understanding age-related diseases. Prior GWAS for leukocyte TL have been limited to European and Asian populations. Here, we report the first sequencing-based association study for TL across ancestrally-diverse individuals (European, African, Asian and Hispanic/Latino) from the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program. We used whole genome sequencing (WGS) of whole blood for variant genotype calling and the bioinformatic estimation of telomere length in n=109,122 individuals. We identified 59 sentinel variants (p-value OBFC1indicated the independent signals colocalized with cell-type specific eQTLs for OBFC1 (STN1). Using a multi-variant gene-based approach, we identified two genes newly implicated in telomere length, DCLRE1B (SNM1B) and PARN. In PheWAS, we demonstrated our TL polygenic trait scores (PTS) were associated with increased risk of cancer-related phenotypes

Cross-ancestry genome-wide association analysis of corneal thickness strengthens link between complex and Mendelian eye diseases.

Central corneal thickness (CCT) is a highly heritable trait associated with complex eye diseases such as keratoconus and glaucoma. We perform a genome-wide association meta-analysis of CCT and identify 19 novel regions. In addition to adding support for known connective tissue-related pathways, pathway analyses uncover previously unreported gene sets. Remarkably, >20% of the CCT-loci are near or within Mendelian disorder genes. These included FBN1, ADAMTS2 and TGFB2 which associate with connective tissue disorders (Marfan, Ehlers-Danlos and Loeys-Dietz syndromes), and the LUM-DCN-KERA gene complex involved in myopia, corneal dystrophies and cornea plana. Using index CCT-increasing variants, we find a significant inverse correlation in effect sizes between CCT and keratoconus (r = -0.62, P = 5.30 × 10-5) but not between CCT and primary open-angle glaucoma (r = -0.17, P = 0.2). Our findings provide evidence for shared genetic influences between CCT and keratoconus, and implicate candidate genes acting in collagen and extracellular matrix regulation