Holistic Information Research Articles

Integrative analysis for COVID-19 patient outcome prediction.

While image analysis of chest computed tomography (CT) for COVID-19 diagnosis has been intensively studied, little work has been performed for image-based patient outcome prediction. Management of high-risk patients with early intervention is a key to lower the fatality rate of COVID-19 pneumonia, as a majority of patients recover naturally. Therefore, an accurate prediction of disease progression with baseline imaging at the time of the initial presentation can help in patient management. In lieu of only size and volume information of pulmonary abnormalities and features through deep learning based image segmentation, here we combine radiomics of lung opacities and non-imaging features from demographic data, vital signs, and laboratory findings to predict need for intensive care unit (ICU) admission. To our knowledge, this is the first study that uses holistic information of a patient including both imaging and non-imaging data for outcome prediction. The proposed methods were thoroughly evaluated on datasets separately collected from three hospitals, one in the United States, one in Iran, and another in Italy, with a total 295 patients with reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay positive COVID-19 pneumonia. Our experimental results demonstrate that adding non-imaging features can significantly improve the performance of prediction to achieve AUC up to 0.884 and sensitivity as high as 96.1%, which can be valuable to provide clinical decision support in managing COVID-19 patients. Our methods may also be applied to other lung diseases including but not limited to community acquired pneumonia. The source code of our work is available at https://github.com/DIAL-RPI/COVID19-ICUPrediction.

Fundamental understanding of high-capacity lithium-excess cathodes with disordered rock salt structure

As a new class of lithium rich cathodes, disordered rock-salt cathodes have been of primary interest, because of their ability to deliver a promisingly high capacity up to 300 mA h/g. Nevertheless, some fundamental issues are yet to be fully understood and a comprehensive mastering of their solid-state chemistry, kinetics and thermal stability is required. Here, we select a high capacity cation-disordered positive electrode- Li1.2Ni0.4Nb0.4O2 as a model compound to study intrinsic reaction mechanism, including charge compensation mechanism, kinetics, thermal stability, and structural evolution. By combining soft and hard X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) with operando and ex-situ differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), galvanostatic intermittent titration technique (GITT), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), we present holistic information on disordered rock-salt cathode. This work provides beneficial insights into designing and tailoring new positive electrodes with disordered rock-salt structure.

Service design for climate-smart agriculture

Holistic information systems for climate-smart agriculture demands the seamless integration of various categories of climate, meteorological and weather data. Any actor in the agricultural value chain may harness weather forecasts at the short and medium-range, local weather history, and prevailing climatic conditions, to inform decision-making. Weather is fundamental to many day-to-day operations, especially at farm-level, influencing decision-making at various spatial and temporal scales. Many operational decisions ideally require hyper-localized service provision. In practice, integrating weather information into decision-support services demands a comprehensive understanding of various categories of weather-related data, their genesis, as well as the specific standards and data formats used by the meteorological community. This paper considers the weather as a crucial context for the delivery of farm-level operational services in smart agriculture, highlighting critical issues for reflection by system designers during the service design and implementation phases.

Development of a holistic model for the management of an enterprise’s information assets

Organisations increasingly realise that they must transform into true digital enterprises to create competitive advantage and ensure corporate survival. However, many organisations do not realise that successful digital transformation (DT) requires much more than technology; it can only succeed if they manage their data, information and knowledge as true business assets. This paper describes collaborative research conducted by academic and industry partners, a mutually beneficial journey spanning the past ten years. The aim was to develop a Holistic Information Asset Management (HIAM) model indicating the important areas of information asset management (IAM) that support the DT journey. Interviews were conducted with C-level executives in organisations from all industries on three continents to investigate their IAM practices, the barriers to good IAM and the benefits of managing information assets (IAs) well. This paper proposes that organisations should focus on ten domains in their quest for effective IAM: i) business benefits, ii) business environment, iii) executive awareness, iv) leadership and management, v) information environment, vi) information systems, vii) information behaviour, viii) information attributes/quality, ix) information performance and x) justification.

ПІДХОДИ ДО РОЗВИТКУ БУХГАЛТЕРСЬКОГО ОБЛІКУ ЯК ІНФОРМАЦІЙНОЇ БАЗИ УПРАВЛІННЯ

У статті досліджуються перспективи розвитку бухгалтерського обліку як інформаційної бази управління бізнесом. Критично оцінено заяви щодо непридатності облікової інформації для прийняття управлінських рішень. Доведено сутність бухгалтерського обліку як цілісної інформаційної системи, призначеної для формування інформації про господарську діяльність підприємства. Із застосуванням системного підходу запропоновано шляхи адаптування методологічного, методичного і практичного інструментарію бухгалтерського обліку до вирішення завдань управління бізнес-структурами.

Self-regulation of the newlyweds in Taiwan: Goals and strategies

The aim of this study is to explore the goals and strategies of self-regulation of the newlyweds in Taiwan. Through in-depth interviews with eight newlywed couples ( N = 16), qualitative data were gathered and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that, under the influence of their cultural values, the newlywed participants pursue the goals of genuine harmony and superficial harmony in their self-regulation for marital adjustment. Genuine harmony can be attained through people’s fulfillment of their role norms in in-law relationships and establishment of affiliations with spouses in marital relationships. On the other hand, superficial harmony can be maintained by people through keeping sketchy relationships with their in-laws and inhibiting anger to prevent open conflicts with their spouses. To achieve relational harmony, various strategies of self-regulation were used depending on the situations involved. Such strategies direct to the principle of zhong-yong (the Doctrine of Mean) involving holistic information processing and avoidance of extremities in implementation. Gender differences in self-regulation were found in both goals and strategies.

In situ, in vivo, and in operando imaging and spectroscopy of liquids using microfluidics in vacuum

This review offers a succinct overview of the development of a vacuum-compatible microfluidic reactor system for analysis at the liquid vacuum interface (SALVI), and its diverse applications in in situ, in vivo, and in operando imaging of liquid surfaces as well as the air-liquid (a-l), liquid-liquid (l-l), and solid-liquid (s-l) interfaces in the past decade. SALVI is one of the first microfluidics-based reactors that has enabled direct analysis of volatile liquids in vacuum surface tools such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS). Its integration into ambient and vacuum spectroscopy and microscopy is illustrated. Several applications are highlighted including (1) imaging nanoparticles in liquid using in situ SEM; (2) mapping the evolving l-l interface using in situ x-ray absorption spectroscopy and ToF-SIMS; (3) following complex a-l interfacial oxidation reaction products using in situ ToF-SIMS; (4) capturing biological interfaces of cells and microbes via in vivo multimodal and correlative imaging; and (5) monitoring the dynamic solid electrode and liquid electrolyte interface using in operando molecular imaging. Finally, outlook and recommendations are presented. Besides showing the holistic information volume obtained by real-time multiplexed imaging, this review intends to convey the importance of tool development in revolutionizing surface and interface analysis using vacuum platforms previously limited to solid surfaces. Microfluidics is manifested to be not limited to ambient conditions in many examples in this review. Moreover, fundamental interfacial phenomena underpinning mass and charge transfer can now be pursued in real time via innovated chemical imaging and spectroscopy.

Child Temperature Monitoring System

Near future human being is going to enhance their capability to communicate sensations by incorporating their five sensory holistic information using modern techniques. Human bond communication is a concept through which we communicate or try to communicate received data by our five sensory organs to another person. The objective of this paper is to provide a smart way to protect infant from sudden infant death syndrome. Proposed technique is a novel concept which will help parents and caretaker to know their newly born baby’s feeling wirelessly whom an infant cannot share with them.

Quantification of Molecular Interactions in Living Cells in Real Time using a Membrane Protein Nanopattern.

Molecular processes within cells have traditionally been studied with biochemical methods due to their high degree of specificity and ease of use. In recent years, cell-based assays have gained more and more popularity since they facilitate the extraction of mode of action, phenotypic, and toxicity information. However, to provide specificity, cellular assays rely heavily on biomolecular labels and tags while label-free cell-based assays only offer holistic information about a bulk property of the investigated cells. Here, we introduce a cell-based assay for protein-protein interaction analysis. We achieve specificity by spatially ordering a membrane protein of interest into a coherent pattern of fully functional membrane proteins on the surface of an optical sensor. Thereby, molecular interactions with the coherently ordered membrane proteins become visible in real time, while nonspecific interactions and holistic changes within the living cell remain invisible. Due to its unbiased nature, this new cell-based detection method presents itself as an invaluable tool for cell signaling research and drug discovery.

MiRNAs as potential biomarker of kidney diseases: A review.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are 22 nucleotides short, non-coding and tissue-specific single-stranded RNA which modulates target gene expression. Presently, shreds of evidence confirmed that miRNAs play a key role in kidney pathophysiology. The objectives of the present review are to summarize new research data towards the latest developments in the potential use of miRNAs as a diagnostic biomarker for kidney diseases. This holistic information will update the existing knowledge of kidney disease biomarkers. "miRNA profile for Diabetic Kidney disease, Acute kidney injury, Renal fibrosis, hemodialysis, transplants, FSGS, IgAN, etc." are the search keywords which have been used in this review. The search outcome gave an exciting insightful perception of miRNAs competence as a biomarker. Also it is observed that various samples as plasma, urine and biopsies were used for profiling the miRNA expression. The miRNAs were not only used for diagnostic biomarkers but also for therapeutic targets. Each kidney disease showed different miRNAs expression profile and few miRNAs quite common with some kidney diseases. miRNAs are simple and efficient diagnostic biomarkers for kidney diseases.

Health information needs of 1000 midlife Singaporean women

ObjectivesDue to demographic changes, aging is a health priority. We aimed to identify midlife women’s perceived health information needs and the preferred method(s) of information delivery.MethodsA questionnaire was offered to women, aged 45–69 years, attending gynecological clinics during April/May 2016, collecting age and ethnicity data. Participants were asked to indicate important midlife health topics out of 26 topics, including ‘other’. For each topic, six delivery options were offered. Age was stratified by 5-year intervals. Associations with age and ethnicity were examined using Pearson’s chi-square tests (p < 0.05); analyses were performed with SPSS version 22.0.ResultsThe top health topics chosen were gynecological cancer (66.0%), joint/muscle aches and pain (64.4%), bone health (63.2%), breast screening (55.9%), and heart health (55.3%). Adjusted results from the logistic regression model found that the odds of choosing the topics gynecological cancer, cervical screening, and complementary and alternative medicine for menopausal symptoms were significantly lower in age groups 55–59, 60–64 and 65–69 years compared to age group 45–49 years. Both Malay and Indian women were less likely to report bone health as important (odds ratio = 0.59, 95% confidence interval = 0.41–0.86) and (odds ratio = 0.64, 95% confidence interval = 0.42–0.98), respectively. Written leaflets were chosen by the majority (84.7%).ConclusionThis study of over 1000 midlife Asian women found that holistic health information is desired and requires tailoring by age, not ethnicity. Written information was preferred over support groups. These findings will guide clinical health services in delivering patient-centered information resources for midlife women.

Robust Object Tracking via Information Theoretic Measures

Object tracking is a very important topic in the field of computer vision. Many sophisticated appearance models have been proposed. Among them, the trackers based on holistic appearance information provide a compact notion of the tracked object and thus are robust to appearance variations under a small amount of noise. However, in practice, the tracked objects are often corrupted by complex noises (e.g., partial occlusions, illumination variations) so that the original appearance-based trackers become less effective. This paper presents a correntropy-based robust holistic tracking algorithm to deal with various noises. Then, a half-quadratic algorithm is carefully employed to minimize the correntropy-based objective function. Based on the proposed information theoretic algorithm, we design a simple and effective template update scheme for object tracking. Experimental results on publicly available videos demonstrate that the proposed tracker outperforms other popular tracking algorithms.

Pixel re-representations for better classification of images

• Proposing a novel method for image classification . • Proposing an automatically optimal re-representations selection approach. • Proposing the maximization ratio as the optimal re-representation selection condition. • Extensive experimental results are conducted. Conventional image capture approaches usually try the best to obtain high-resolution images to allow people to see details of the objects. Still, the high-resolution images do not always imply efficient classification accuracy. Holistic information of images has a more critical influence on the identification of the corresponding objects than detailed information of images. In this paper, we propose to attain optimal pixel re-representations of images and exploit them to perform classification. The merits of the proposed approach are as follows. (1) It automatically selects optimal re-representations for original images from a number of candidates by virtue of a feasible procedure. (2) Maximizing the ratio of the between-class distance to the within-class distance not only allows the optimal re-representations to be attained but also can adequately prompt sparse representation and collaborative representation to attain a better classification accuracy. The procedure of maximizing the ratio makes the obtained optimal re-representations of all objects as diverse as possible. Therefore, the attained linear combination of all training samples, in the form of vectors, of all objects can better express the test sample and has less expression error in comparison with the corresponding case based on original training samples of all objects. The experiments also prove that the optimal pixel re-representations are helpful to improve not only the sparse representation and collaborative representation but also other classification image classification approaches, to obtain more satisfactory classification accuracy.

Socio Economic Aspects of Lowland Bamboo (Oxytenanthera abyssinica )

Bamboo Plays a vital role in environmental amelioration, biodiversity preservation, and soil conservation and protects other plants from frost, wind and water erosion and itself from freely moving speedy winds and frost. It also contributes to flood management, wastage disposal, waste purification and ecological sanitation as well as recharging groundwater. Bamboo sequesters up to 12 tons of carbon dioxide from the air per hectare and it release 35% more oxygen than equivalent stands of trees. Despite the large area coverage, economic, social and conservation significance of bamboo in Ethiopia, information about production, utilization and its use as forage for livestock is limited. Therefore, the present review was conducted with the objectives of generating holistic information socio-economic aspects of the indigenous low land bamboo species. The primary use of raw bamboo material is for housing, fencing, household equipment’s and amenities. The majority of rural families are entirely dependent on raw bamboo for household furniture and as a source of domestic energy and Bamboo is the main material for the construction of house, animal sheds fences, fuel wood and beehives in Asossa Zone, Benshangul-Gumuz Region. In addition, for Jeblawi people of Mandura district in this Region, the shoots of bamboo are very important for their delicious nutritional food sources. Keywords: socio economic, oxytenanthera abyssinica DOI: 10.7176/JPID/54-04 Publication date: May 31 st 2020

RobuTrans: A Robust Transformer-Based Text-to-Speech Model

Recently, neural network based speech synthesis has achieved outstanding results, by which the synthesized audios are of excellent quality and naturalness. However, current neural TTS models suffer from the robustness issue, which results in abnormal audios (bad cases) especially for unusual text (unseen context). To build a neural model which can synthesize both natural and stable audios, in this paper, we make a deep analysis of why the previous neural TTS models are not robust, based on which we propose RobuTrans (Robust Transformer), a robust neural TTS model based on Transformer. Comparing to TransformerTTS, our model first converts input texts to linguistic features, including phonemic features and prosodic features, then feed them to the encoder. In the decoder, the encoder-decoder attention is replaced with a duration-based hard attention mechanism, and the causal self-attention is replaced with a "pseudo non-causal attention" mechanism to model the holistic information of the input. Besides, the position embedding is replaced with a 1-D CNN, since it constrains the maximum length of synthesized audio. With these modifications, our model not only fix the robustness problem, but also achieves on parity MOS (4.36) with TransformerTTS (4.37) and Tacotron2 (4.37) on our general set.

Fish biophony in a Mediterranean submarine canyon.

Although several bioacoustics investigations have shed light on the acoustic communication of Mediterranean fish species, the occurrence of fish sounds has never been reported below -40 m depth. This study assessed the occurrence of fish sounds at greater depths by monitoring the soundscape of a Mediterranean submarine canyon (Calvi, France) thanks to a combination of Static Acoustic Monitoring (three stations, from -125 to -150 m depth, 3 km from coastline) and of hydrophone-integrated gliders (Mobile Acoustic Monitoring; from -60 to -900 m depth, 3-6 km from coastline). Biological sounds were detected in 38% of the audio files; ten sound types (for a total of more than 9.000 sounds) with characteristics corresponding to those emitted by vocal species, or known as produced by fish activities, were found. For one of these sound types, emitter identity was inferred at the genus level (Ophidion sp.). An increase of from 10 to 15 dB re 1 μPa in sea ambient noise was observed during daytime hours due to boat traffic, potentially implying an important daytime masking effect. This study shows that monitoring the underwater soundscape of Mediterranean submarine canyons can provide holistic information needed to better understand the state and the dynamics of these heterogeneous, highly diverse environments.

For Young Scientists: The Human Body

Children are natural scientists – their budding minds brim with questions, and they're prone to experimentation, poking and prodding the world around them to see what happens. Just watching a baby push toys off the edge of a high chair can be an inspiring experience, because you can see the way repetition allows the child to formulate theories about cause (push block!) and effect (block falls!).We love to see books that encourage children's innate enthusiasm for exploration and demonstrate that science is for everyone. For instance, Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille, by Jen Bryant and Boris Kulikov, depicts the why and how of a young inventor at work; for younger readers, Gus's Garage, by Leo Timmers, promotes tinkering and the do-it-yourself ethos that drives the development of scientific tools from telescopes to microarrays. The Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with the Chimps, by Jeanette Winter, lets children know that skills they already have – the enthusiasm to sit and watch ants or potato bugs skitter in the dirt – are the foundation of scientific research. These books beautifully convey the practice of science to young readers (and their families!).Contemporary scientific exploration also builds upon the expertise of those who have come before us. Which, again, is something most children intuitively understand: inundate your parents with questions until you reach the limits of their understanding, then investigate further yourself. So our family is thrilled when we find books that can repackage the current state of the art in a format accessible to even the youngest readers. Baby Loves Green Energy!, by Ruth Spiro, is an accurate, endearing board book; Grandmother Fish, by Jonathan Tweet and Karen Lewis, depicts evolution through the progression of most recent common ancestors that Homo sapiens has shared with other species. We were pleased to find that Power Up comfortably straddles these categories, encouraging children's natural tendency toward exploration alongside accessible, holistic information about science and wellness.This author-illustrator duo also created the award-winning A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars, which celebrates the power of numbers and how a sense of scale helps us understand the world. Power Up features some of that number play, but its main goal seems to be helping young readers connect their own embodied experiences – and potential for discovery – to science. When our family read Power Up at bedtime, our preschooler started piping up: “I do that!” – which we imagine to be the exact response Fishman and Greenberg hoped for.Fishman explains in an author's note that the book's title and framing device are intended as a playful take on mass-energy equivalence, an idea that isn't explored in the text beyond Einstein's famous equation displayed prominently in a picture. Nor are the various types of energy inside a body – mass, atomic, chemical, electrovoltaic, and so on – explicitly enumerated. But the basic principle that our bodies have and need energy provides a lovely lens for Fishman to connect children with the awe-inspiring breadth of human endeavor and healthy practices for mind and body. Greenberg's illustrations follow a young person of color, her caregiver, and many other children endearingly engaged in activities both profound (building cities!) and mundane (eating broccoli!).Biology is, in our humble opinion, a particularly beautiful science, but we'd wager that most of us who teach it are generally motivated by science's potential to inspire the next generation. As our enthralled kiddo repeated “That's just like ME” on page after page, we realized that this book has the power to do just that.

Heavy metal pollution and comprehensive ecological risk assessment of surface soil in diffe-rent functional areas of Shenzhen, China

To explore the impact of urban functional zones on surface soil metal pollution, we analyzed the concentrations and pollution status of eight heavy metals (i.e., Mn, Ni, Cr, Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu, and As) in surface soils from various urban functional zones of Shenzhen City. Nemero index and potential ecological hazard indices were used to quantify the ecological risk levels of different heavy metals in different urban functional zones. Moreover, we spatially classified ecological risk zones for soil heavy metal pollution. Results showed that: 1) concentrations of Cd, Zn, Cu, and As in the surface soil were heavily impacted by human activities, while those of Mn, Ni, Cr, and Pb were not. High-intensity urbanization and industrialization with the constraints of physical environment were identified as the determining factors for regional and functional variation of heavy metal pollution. 2) Pb, Cd, Zn, and Cu had high pollution risks in the surface soils, with Pb having the highest risk, which necessitated further management and control of heavy metals. The overall level of heavy metal pollution risk in the surface soils of Shenzhen was higher than that of other cities in China. 3) Nemero index and potential ecological hazard indices had different emphases in terms of assessing the risk level of heavy metals. Those indices showed different performances in the risk assessment of single heavy metal, overall ecological risks in the different urban functional zones, and ecological risk classification of heavy metal pollution in the urban surface soils. We suggest that those indices should be combined to provide more holistic information about urban heavy metal pollution.

Social identity mapping online.

Social identities play an important role in many aspects of life, not least in those pertaining to health and well-being. Decades of research shows that these relationships are driven by a range of social identity processes, including identification with groups, social support received from groups, and multiple group memberships. However, to date, researchers have not had access to methods that simultaneously capture these social identity processes. To fill this void, this article introduces an online Social Identity Mapping (oSIM) tool designed to assess the multidimensional and connected nature of social identities. Four studies (total N = 721) featuring community, student, new parent, and retiree samples, test the reliability and validity of oSIM. Results indicate that the tool is easy to use, engaging, has good internal consistency as well as convergent and discriminant validity, and predicts relevant outcomes across a range of contexts. Furthermore, using meta-analytic findings, the tool is able to index a higher-order social identity construct, here introduced as a supergroup. This new concept provides holistic information about groups (reflecting an integrated index of several social identity processes) that are predictive of well-being outcomes, as well as outcomes related to successful adjustment to challenging life events. We discuss how the tool can be used to tackle key debates in the literature and contribute to theory by affording researchers the opportunity to capture the nuanced and contextual nature of social identity in action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A decision analysis approach to electronics standard development informed by life cycle assessment using influence diagrams

Life cycle assessment (LCA) provides holistic information on systems including the trade-offs between environmental impacts and the drivers of such impacts. Coupling life cycle assessment with a decision analysis (DA) method can help ensure that a life cycle assessment is focused on pertinent decision performance measures. In this paper, a framework integrating life cycle assessment with a decision analysis method to enhance the application of life cycle assessment is presented with a real-world case study of developing a material inclusion criterion for sustainable electronics standards. The proposed DA-LCA framework is a five-step process that tracks the flow of information between the steps of decision analysis and life cycle assessment. The case study considered the level of post-consumer-recycled or biobased content in laptop enclosures. Elicitation with a mock stakeholder panel was used to structure a means-ends network and create a utility-based influence diagram to link changes in material inclusion to environmental objectives using life cycle impact scores. Unlike typical life cycle assessment, the decision analysis approach allows for explicit incorporation of non-environmental factors and better constrains product options. Using this approach, the optimum decision for a possible range of 0–30% material content is 5% or 10%, depending on weighting. The DA-LCA framework can provide a blueprint for placing life cycle assessment results in context for decision-makers.