Prediction of future hospital admissions - what is the tradeoff between specificity and accuracy?

Large amounts of electronic medical records collected by hospitals across the developed world offer unprecedented possibilities for knowledge discovery using computer based data mining and machine learning. Notwithstanding significant research efforts, the use of this data in the prediction of disease development has largely been disappointing. In this paper we examine in detail a recently proposed method which has in preliminary experiments demonstrated highly promising results on real-world data. We scrutinize the authors' claims that the proposed model is scalable and investigate whether the tradeoff between prediction specificity (i.e. the ability of the model to predict a wide number of different ailments) and accuracy (i.e. the ability of the model to make the correct prediction) is practically viable. Our experiments conducted on a data corpus of nearly 3,000,000 admissions support the authors' expectations and demonstrate that the high prediction accuracy is maintained well even when the number of admission types explicitly included in the model is increased to account for 98% of all admissions in the corpus. Thus several promising directions for future work are highlighted.Comment: In Proc. International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, April 201

FACTORS INFLUENCING STRATEGIC USE OF WEBBASED PLATFORM AND ITS IMPACT ON EDUCATION AT UNIVERSITY

Introducing web-based platforms in education process opens new era of technology for learning including huge challenges in education. Web-based learning could be considered as essential component fostering online learning and teaching. Various factors influencing the teachers while applying study materials in e-learning platform are investigated in the given research study. The author offers an indicative pattern of a standard content of eteaching materials, and investigates to what extent teaching materials available in MOODLE correspond to this standard pattern for ensuring comprehensive web-based e-learning and supporting effective collaboration system for the students and educator. For assessment the completeness level of e-materials available the composite coefficient is recommended as useful tool for educators who are interested in developing e-learning and e-teaching

Contemporary Russian Literature in Latvia: Children’s Literature

Throughout the 20th century, Russian children’s literature in Latvia was a unique phenomenon. Against the background of the general trends of Soviet children’s literature, Latvian children’s literature (in both Latvian and Russian) developed in a space that was less constrained in respect of ideological censorship. 21st century children’s literature in Latvia is developing both taking into account the previous history and current trends. The article is devoted to the specific features of children’s literature in Russian, taking into account the general status of the Russian language as a foreign language and general trends in the socio-cultural space of Latvia. The study considers two main issues. First, it is a sociological analysis of the situation: an assortment of children’s books, the specifics of the school programme, awareness of contemporary Latvian and Russian children’s literature. On the other hand, the corpus of texts of contemporary children’s literature is studied, and an overview of the oeuvre of contemporary Latvian authors is presented. The material for literary analysis was the book by Vladimir Novikov, “The Mischief of the Obedient Martins”. In the course of the analysis, the specifics of the traditional children’s story, the cultural and historical context of the cross-border identity of the author and his potential readers, the specifics of the contemporary narrative, the identification of the concept “one’s own – other’s” were revealed

Automatic knowledge extraction from EHRs

Increasing efforts in the collection, standardization, and maintenance of large scale longitudinal elec- tronic health care records (EHRs) across the world provide a promising source of real world medical data with the potential of providing major novel insights of benefit both to specific individuals in the context of personalized medicine, as well as on the level of population-wide health care and policy. The present paper builds upon the existing and intensifying efforts at using machine learning to provide predictions on future diagnoses likely to be experienced by a particular individual based on the person’s existing diagnostic history. The specific model adopted as the baseline predictive framework is based on the concept of a binary diagnostic history vector representation of a patient’s diagnostic medical record. The technical novelty introduced herein concerns the manner in which transitions between diagnostic history vectors are learnt. We demonstrate that the proposed change prima fasciae enables greater learning specificity. We present a series of experiments which demon- strate the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, and which reveal novel insights regarding the most promising future research directions.Postprin

Towards sophisticated learning from EHRs : increasing prediction specificity and accuracy using clinically meaningful risk criteria

Computer based analysis of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) has the potential to provide major novel insights of benefit both to specific individuals in the context of personalized medicine, as well as on the level of population-wide health care and policy. The present paper introduces a novel algorithm that uses machine learning for the discovery of longitudinal patterns in the diagnoses of diseases. Two key technical novelties are introduced: one in the form of a novel learning paradigm which enables greater learning specificity, and another in the form of a risk driven identification of confounding diagnoses. We present a series of experiments which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, and which reveal novel insights regarding the most promising future research directions.Postprin

In vivo imaging of protease activity by Probody therapeutic activation.

Probody™ therapeutics are recombinant, proteolytically-activated antibody prodrugs, engineered to remain inert until activated locally by tumor-associated proteases. Probody therapeutics exploit the fundamental dysregulation of extracellular protease activity that exists in tumors relative to healthy tissue. Leveraging the ability of a Probody therapeutic to bind its target at the site of disease after proteolytic cleavage, we developed a novel method for profiling protease activity in living animals. Using NIR optical imaging, we demonstrated that a non-labeled anti-EGFR Probody therapeutic can become activated and compete for binding to tumor cells in vivo with a labeled anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody. Furthermore, by inhibiting matriptase activity in vivo with a blocking-matriptase antibody, we show that the ability of the Probody therapeutic to bind EGFR in vivo was dependent on protease activity. These results demonstrate that in vivo imaging of Probody therapeutic activation can be used for screening and characterization of protease activity in living animals, and provide a method that avoids some of the limitations of prior methods. This approach can improve our understanding of the activity of proteases in disease models and help to develop efficient strategies for cancer diagnosis and treatment

ТРАДИЦИЯ И ЛИТЕРАТУРА О ХОЛОКОСТЕ

The notion of literature on Holocaust is rather much debated in contemporary literary science and Judaic studies. Recently two points of view concerning it have emerged. That of Western European literary scholarship suggests the term ‘literature of testimonial’ that regards the events of Holocaust as a climax in the history of human consciousness in line with the related changes regarding artistic creation. The East European and the Near East traditions apply the designation ‘literature on Holocaust’ in relation to works of a certain thematic range, traditionally singling out in a separate group books of memories representing rather memoir material and not works of fiction. The paper will regard the artistic models wherein the theme of Holocaust appears in the background and not in the focus – works by E. Sevela, F. Gorenstein, G. Kanovich. These texts let us talk about search for a new model of a new understanding of the context regarding the theme of Holocaust. Besides, the literary model of these authors has been greatly influenced by their professional activities in cinematography, in particular the cinematographic reflection of the theme of Holocaust built on the crossing point of following the tradition and search for new techniques.KEY WORDS: Holocaust, russian-jewish literature, tradicionally, artistic model

Human needs in urban public spaces

During Soviet times, many cities were built to utilize the space in an economically efficient way. Such things as landscape architecture did not exist, and people’s needs and preferences were not taken into consideration while planning cities. Some of these cities are still facing problems of low quality public space. The purpose of this master project is to explore the topic of human needs in urban environment, and to present a proposal for public spaces in Olaine that aims to improve the quality of recreation areas. To approach this matter, a theoretical background is based on a literature study. The thesis discusses the importance of outdoor recreation in general, and particularly for city dwellers, it discovers human needs in different types of urban settings, and it draws the guidelines for development of urban public spaces. A case study of the context area gives an understanding of the existing recreation possibilities, and describes the conditions of the area, its values, and its weaknesses. The findings from the obtained knowledge and analysis of the study area formed the basis of design guidelines for the proposed development of the area. The suggested proposal for the ‘green corridor’ demonstrates possibilities for improvement of green areas in Olaine with regard to human needs, promotion of outdoor recreation, and revival of neglected places. The design solutions aim to provide new public space for people to socialize and interact with urban nature. This project is not intended to be a final solution for all post-Soviet cities, but rather raises a discussion of how to approach the design of urban places, and how general guidelines can be used as basic principles and implemented in various situations

Ukrainische Übersetzung des Werkes Priče iz davnine [Aus Urväterzeiten]: lexikalische und phraseologische Besonderheiten der Übersetzung

U radu se analiziraju jezične osobitosti prijevoda Priča iz davnine Ivane Brlić-Mažuranić na ukrajinski jezik. Prijevod „Šume Striborove“ Vasilja Vojtanivskoga tiskan je 1932. g. u Zapadnoj Ukrajini u časopisu Світ дитини [Dječji svijet]. Prijevod Priča iz davnine Vilja Grimiča objavljen je 1971. godine, a nešto kasnije se, kao zasebno izdanje, pojavila priča „Lutonjica Toporko i devet župančića“ (1978), također u njegovu prijevodu. Književni povjesničari i teoretičari isticali su bajkovitost Priča iz davnine te njihovu bliskost s narodnim stvaralaštvom, a svijet slavenskih bajki zainteresirao je i ukrajinske prevoditelje. Bliskost oblikovanja bajki, motivi, način pripovijedanja, elementi usmenoga pripovijedanja, sličnosti likova ukrajinskih i hrvatskih bajki (narodnih i autorskih), a i sličnosti dvaju jezika, omogućili su Vojtanivskomu i Grimiču da u prijevode uvedu velik broj prevoditeljskih rješenja koja vjerno prenose izvorne formulacije. Prevoditeljsko majstorstvo posebice dolazi do izražaja u jezičnim transformacijama, kada to zahtijevaju norme ukrajinskoga jezika.The paper discusses the linguistic peculiarities of the translations of stories from Tales of Long Ago by Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić into the Ukrainian language. The translation of “Stribor’s Forest” (“Šuma Striborova”) by Vasily Voytanivskiy was published in 1932 in West Ukraine in the journal Children’s World. The translation by Vily Grymych of Tales of Long Ago came out in 1971, and later, as a separate publication, the publishing house for children in Kiev issued “Toporko the Wanderer and the Nine Princes” (1978). Literary scholars have shown long-standing interest in these fairy tales, and their closeness to Slavic folklore traditions has attracted Ukrainian readers. The familiarity of literary treatment, the characters, narrative, elements of oral storytelling, the similarities between the characters from Ukrainian and Croatian fairy tales, as well as the closeness of the two languages, enabled Grymych to use a large number of appropriate translation solutions to convey the original text. The translator’s mastery is especially evident in the linguistic transformations dictated by the norms of the Ukrainian language.Im Beitrag werden sprachliche Besonderheiten der Übersetzung von Ivana BrlićMažuranićs Werk Priče iz davnine [Aus Urväterzeiten] analysiert. Die Übersetzung von Wassily Wojtaniwski wurde 1932 in der westukrainischen Zeitschrift Світ дитини [Kinderwelt] veröffentlicht. Die nächste Übersetzung von Vily Grymych erfolgte 1971, wonach etwas später als Sonderausgabe auch das Märchen „Lutonjica Toporko i devet župančića“ [Landstreicherlein Toporko und die neun Gaugräflein] erschienen ist. Die Literaturhistoriker und -theoretiker heben die Märchenhaftigkeit der Sammlung sowie ihre Nähe zur Volksliteratur hervor, weshalb die Welt der slawischen Märchen auch bei den ukrainischen Übersetzern auf Interesse stieß. Ähnlichkeiten in der Märchengestaltung, Motive, Erzählweise, Elemente des mündlichen Erzählens, Verwandtschaft der Gestalten aus ukrainischen und kroatischen Märchen (sowohl aus Volks- wie auch Kunstmärchen), aber auch die Verwandtschaft beider Sprachen ermöglichten Wojtaniwski und Grymych, in ihre Texte zahlreiche Übersetzungslösungen einzubauen, dank denen die Formulierungen aus der Ausgangssprache ins Ukrainische treu übertragen wurden. Die Meisterhaftigkeit dieser Übersetzungen kommt insbesondere zum Ausdruck bei jenen sprachlichen Transformationen, bei denen die Sprachnormen des Ukrainischen zu beachten waren