In-house Experts Research Articles

Abstract 4319: The need for new publication standards in cancer genomics, lessons from curating COSMIC database

Abstract A consequence of the progress in cancer genomics is the exponential growth in data produced by research and clinical projects. Given the limited capacity within a scientific manuscript to share experimental data, various approaches have been developed: some data are simply excluded from the publication, moved to the supplementary materials, external repositories are used, and big research programmes present their integrated results on dedicated websites. This last approach has been extremely successful in generating comprehensive and unbiased datasets used by legions of scientists to discover new mechanisms driving cancer, biomarkers and drug targets. However, journal publications are still delivering more data globally, especially from rare cancers and underrepresented populations. To bring the full potential of these data and to make all this knowledge fully available, several challenges need to be addressed. COSMIC (Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer) has an in-house expert curation team that extracts information about genetic variants, their significance, patients and their response to therapy from publications and integrates it into a standardised cross-referenced database available to the scientific community. Although curators are able to extract data presented in non-standard forms (e.g. manuscript figures), interpret and translate between various data formats, they cannot extract data that are not included in the publication. Approximately one third of manuscripts that are curateable are discarded due to the absence of data generated in the research process but not included in the publication. This clearly shows an urgent need for bringing researchers, publishers, and curators together to develop new publication standards that would allow communities to fully exploit the potential of published data and make them re-usable for further discoveries. We would like to propose several suggestions to start this discussion: - Use accepted naming conventions and standards to make your data interoperable, think about your work as part of the world heritage - Include all data you generate; even if not directly relevant to the manuscript topic, they may be invaluable for somebody else’s research - Share full data and use service providers that share all the data with you - When possible, share the data per patient or sample, not per cohort - Publishing a manuscript is not an endpoint, there’s a huge potential in your data to be further utilised to fight cancer Citation Format: Alexander Holmes, Sari A. Ward, Zbyslaw Sondka. The need for new publication standards in cancer genomics, lessons from curating COSMIC database. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 4319.

The Roundness of Antiquity Valuations from Auction Houses and Sales

Auction houses employ in-house art experts to assess the value of objects. Items that will be placed on the auction block are first published in catalogs with the experts’ upper- and lower-bound estimates of each object’s market value. This paper examines whether the roundness of those estimates is related to the likelihood that items sell and their eventual hammer price. We find that rounder lower estimates reduce the eventual hammer price and perhaps also the likelihood that the item sells. The roundness of the upper estimate seems to have no clear impact on the auction outcome.

Overcoming barriers in academic-industry partnerships to improve predictive modeling in immuno-oncology.

e13581 Background: In the past decade, immunotherapies have revolutionized oncology practice by prolonging patient survival in previously rapidly fatal cancers. However, severe immune toxicities present a challenge, affecting ̃20% and up to 50% of patients on immune monotherapies and combination immunotherapies, respectively. Oncologists must balance toxicity risk with potential efficacy, and pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in selecting patients with the highest benefit–risk ratio during trial enrollment. Predictive toxicity–efficacy modeling has the potential to guide trial subject selection and clinical care, yet there remains a need for predictive models that can be practically implemented in these settings. Methods: A common academic–industry contract data–transfer framework—wherein academic medical institutions and industry counterparts act in isolation—creates barriers to development of high-quality algorithms with practical applications. In this framework, 1) academic medical institutions provide patient data as a “data dump;” these data are static and cannot be refined—reducing opportunities for quality control; 2) predictive model outcomes may include artifacts that are not identified; 3) manual curation of patient data is required to accurately replicate the model in real-world settings; and 4) lack of clinician participation reduces the potential clinical applications of models and reciprocal benefit to the academic institution. We outline a more contemporary, engaged approach to unite strengths of both partners to achieve a common goal. Results: In 2019, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and GE Healthcare partnered with the goal of enabling safer and more precise immunotherapy use. As part of this work, we formulated a recipe for academic–industry partnerships that offers unique advantages over a static contract framework. In our iterative, interactive approach, 1) clinical and curation experts meet with industry modelers to dynamically refine deidentified data sets by resolving discrepancies in data from different sources (e.g., manually curated vs. structured data); 2) clinical experts iteratively review outputs of predictive models to identify potential artifacts and refine final models; 3) expert curators iterate with in-house machine-learning experts to create algorithms to automate curation of natural language elements from the identified EHR data; and 4) clinical and industry stakeholders participate in regular meetings with modelers to ensure clinical and trial utility of the modeling approach. Conclusions: Compared to data transfer-only relationships, this partnership framework offers an opportunity to develop more informed, higher quality immunotherapy models with clinical and industry applications.

A survey of multidisciplinary healthcare providers utilizing the KNOWintegrativeoncology.org educational platform

BackgroundAlthough the vast majority of cancer patients use natural health products (NHPs), 59% of oncology healthcare providers (HCP) report not receiving any education on NHPs. KNOWintegrativeoncology.org (KNOW) is a web-based educational platform that provides up-to-date evidence on NHPs used in cancer care with a user-friendly interface. KNOW is a database of human studies systematically gathered from MEDLINE and EMBASE. We surveyed HCPs before and after accessing KNOW to identify their information needs regarding NHPs in cancer care, their preferred way to receive information, barriers they face accessing NHP information, and to obtain feedback on the website.MethodsRecruitment was done through Beaumont Health Systems, the Society for Integrative Oncology, and the Andrew Weil Centre for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona. HCPs who consented completed an initial survey and then a follow-up survey after being given access to KNOW for 4–6 weeks. Participants were required to access KNOW at least three times before completion of the follow-up survey.ResultsA total of 65 participants completed the initial survey, with 60% (n = 39) from the conventional medical community, 33% (n = 21) from the integrative medicine community, and 7% (n = 5) from the research community. The majority of participants (82%; n = 53) preferred educational websites to email updates, podcasts/webinars, in-house experts, PubMed searches and smartphone apps. The most common barriers identified to accessing information on NHPs were time, accessibility at point-of-care, and credibility of sources. A high number of participants were lost to follow up, with 18 participants demographically representative of the initial sample of 65 completing the follow-up survey. Half (n = 9) of participants stated accessing the KNOW website changed their clinical practice. Close to 90% (n = 16) reported they would recommend KNOW to a colleague.ConclusionOncology HCPs reported preferring to use, and already relying on, numerous web-based educational platforms to gather information on NHPs, with time, accessibility, and credibility being common barriers to obtaining information. Our study findings highlight the promise of the KNOW web-based educational platform in reducing barriers to accessing up-to-date information on NHPs in busy cancer care settings.

Sharing taxonomic expertise between natural history collections using image recognition

Natural history collections play a vital role in biodiversity research and conservation by providing a window to the past. The usefulness of the vast amount of historical data depends on their quality, with correct taxonomic identifications being the most critical. The identification of many of the objects of natural history collections, however, is wanting, doubtful or outdated. Providing correct identifications is difficult given the sheer number of objects and the scarcity of expertise. Here we outline the construction of an ecosystem for the collaborative development and exchange of image recognition algorithms designed to support the identification of objects. Such an ecosystem will facilitate sharing taxonomic expertise among institutions by offering image datasets that are correctly identified by their in-house taxonomic experts. Together with openly accessible machine learning algorithms and easy to use workbenches, this will allow other institutes to train image recognition algorithms and thereby compensate for the lacking expertise.

MOET: a web-based gene set enrichment tool at the Rat Genome Database for multiontology and multispecies analyses.

Biological interpretation of a large amount of gene or protein data is complex. Ontology analysis tools are imperative in finding functional similarities through overrepresentation or enrichment of terms associated with the input gene or protein lists. However, most tools are limited by their ability to do ontology-specific and species-limited analyses. Furthermore, some enrichment tools are not updated frequently with recent information from databases, thus giving users inaccurate, outdated or uninformative data. Here, we present MOET or the Multi-Ontology Enrichment Tool (v.1 released in April 2019 and v.2 released in May 2021), an ontology analysis tool leveraging data that the Rat Genome Database (RGD) integrated from in-house expert curation and external databases including the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI), The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), The Gene Ontology Resource, UniProt-GOA, and others. Given a gene or protein list, MOET analysis identifies significantly overrepresented ontology terms using a hypergeometric test and provides nominal and Bonferroni corrected P-values and odds ratios for the overrepresented terms. The results are shown as a downloadable list of terms with and without Bonferroni correction, and a graph of the P-values and number of annotated genes for each term in the list. MOET can be accessed freely from https://rgd.mcw.edu/rgdweb/enrichment/start.html.

A Study on the Utilization Factors and Effects of Big Data in SMEs

Background/Objectives: The purpose of this study was to derive major utilization factors that can increase the practical data utilization ability of SMEs by utilizing big data, and examine the utilization methods and effects.
 Methods/Statistical analysis: This study derives the utilization factors and effects of organizational, technical, environmental, and policy aspects so that SMEs can increase their data utilization capabilities. The target was for SME managers or members. Frequency analysis was conducted to understand the distribution by demographic characteristics, and the relationship between factors and effects was measured through factor analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis for the measured variables.
 Findings: Perform regression to analyze the impact, utilization, and impact of independent variables on technology, organizational gender, environment, and policy performance as dependent variables
 Durbin-Watson's index was below 2.1 and self-relevant and had the power to explain the impact of independent variables such as organizational gender, technology, environment, and policy on utilization. In terms of application, it was found that the use of big data had an effect on education and human resource development rather than the perception of managers and members. Therefore, it was found that education related to big data and in-house experts were recognized as necessary. On the effective side, it was found that the perception of managers and employees influenced. It was found that corporate members thought that when promoting big data, promoting it with the strong will of the manager is an effective aspect for using big data.
 Improvements/Applications: If you possess the infrastructure and knowledge in the company, and improve the system with the support of members, it will be an opportunity to increase the utilization of it

Scientific and Legal Mechanisms for Addressing Model Uncertainties: Negotiating the Right Balance in Finnish Judicial Review?

Abstract Environmental models are ubiquitous in assessing the environmental impacts of planned projects. Modelling is an inferential process and includes various mechanisms to address the uncertainty of the outcome. In this article, we acknowledge the continuum of uncertainty assessments and identify the legal mechanisms with which Finnish judicial review—characterised by broad scope of review and in-house expert judges—has encountered model uncertainty. Closely examining 10 waters-related cases heard by the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland, we explain the porous yet substantial boundary between science and law revealed by the cases. The cases demonstrate the elegance with which courts can strike a balance between the contingent precautionary principle, gradually decreasing scientific uncertainty, and the procedural constraints under which they operate. We conclude by analysing the traces towards reciprocality and adaptivity the cases reveal, encouraged by the iterative modelling mechanism and challenged by the constitutional restrictions on the scope of review.

Do tax experts play a monitoring role in audit engagements?

Using proprietary data, this study is among the first to provide evidence on the monitoring role of auditors’ in-house tax experts. This role is important due to the relatively high frequency and proportion of tax expert hours in audits, and the salience of tax-related accruals in financial reporting. We show that tax expert effort is associated with client complexity and auditor characteristics. Next, we demonstrate that tax expert effort is associated with the incidence of tax-related internal control weaknesses, but it is not enough to fully mitigate the risk of material misstatements. We also find that tax expert effort is costly, resulting in higher audit fees and lower realization rates. Finally, tax expert effort is associated with conservative tax accruals but not with aggressive tax planning. Overall, although tax expert effort is associated with audit quality and financial reporting quality, it is not a seamless solution to audit tax-related accruals.

Mental Health Issues Among University Students and Educators' Readiness to Detect and Help

Students with mental issues are becoming prevalent in institutions of higher learning. Most of them choose to remain silent and it becomes the role of educators to identify the problem and get them the help needed. This study aims to examine the educators’ readiness to reach out to students who showed mental health issues such as stress, anxiety and depression during their course of study. They are also able to create a safe environment for the students to unleash their worrisome and bridging to necessary help available around the institutions. This study had undertaken a quantitative descriptive survey on seeking the inclination for educators to help their students in mental health issues. Nineteen items were constructed and distributed online to lecturers in a local institution of higher learning, 191 responses were received. Results indicated that knowing mental health information would increase the inclination of helping behaviour. However, many did not refer to the in-house expert, such as a university’s counsellor. Besides the absence of a mental health framework in higher institutions, these lecturers agree on having a quick reference to guide their help towards the students. Several research implications were also suggested.

Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar and Helping the Persecuted

As a study of corporate and individual behaviour in the context of Nazi Germany, my research concerning Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar – the manufacturer of the Leica camera – is situated and seeks to build on the insights of scholars writing histories of businesses during this period. Leitz’s highly unusual activities to help approximately eighty Jews and non-Jews, throughout the duration of the Nazi regime, involved training, employment, financial aid, and assistance both to leave Germany and when abroad. Where necessary, Leitz also intervened to help employees subjected to criminal prosecution. Ambivalence is present when discussing Leitz’s increasingly conformist public face and producing sophisticated armaments, designed and built by in-house experts. Leitz also relied on forced labourers brought from Ukraine. These ambivalent activities, along with maintaining an extensive range of critical relationships with those holding authority, crucially enabled Ernst Leitz to survive and retain ownership of his firm.

Mitigating hiring risks through pre-employment background screening: Methodology based on the personnel security approach

In the wake of the corporate scandals linked to negligent hiring, many organisations worldwide have prioritised background investigations to avoid harm or legal liability and ensure safety of their assets, employees and clients. Negligent hiring takes place when an employer fails to verify that a prospective employee may pose a threat to their company. The article discusses the process of pre-employment screenings aimed at mitigating the risk of corporate fraud, unethical behaviour and organisational deviance. The goal of the article is to analyse a methodological basis for pre-employment background checks carried out by the in-house recruitment experts or third party employee screening companies. A large number of the existing studies have examined the theory and policies of pre-employment screenings, have scrutinised functionality and efficiency of background investigations and have addressed the methods used as part of this process. However, prior research has not identified a comprehensive and integrated technique of carrying out a pre-employment background check. To fill this gap, the paper suggests a vacancy-specific background screening of potential candidates according to the previously defined security criteria formulated in the article. The objective of the abovementioned approach is to generate an effective mechanism of identifying the so-called “risky hires” before the onboarding stage of recruitment. It is argued that both risk evaluation and pre-employment assessments of candidates should be viewed as a standard business practice integrated into a comprehensive hiring corporate policy.

SlimDna – An in-house expert system for STR profiling

At NFC the internally developed software for DNA analysis, SlimDna is used. It is complementary to the LIMS and keeps track of samples, sample batches, instrument files and generated data. The system communicates with the LIMS, instruments and other software. SlimDna includes four modules (Analysis, Control, Administration and Frequency calculation) and covers the entire analysis process from DNA extraction to reporting approved STR profiles to the LIMS. SlimDna is built with Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) as application server and the user interface consists of Windows clients. For data storage MySQL is used. The software has been implemented in different packages, STR typing being the latest. The system has streamlined the STR typing by providing, among other functions, automated evaluation of STR profiles, databases for observed variant alleles as well as tracking and logging of negative and positive controls. STR electropherograms from analysis of crime scene samples (around 30 000 per year) are evaluated by SlimDna according to set rules concerning for example stutter ratio, heterozygote balance and number of alleles per marker in order to define the profile as a single source genotype or a mixture. The SlimDna output is compared to a manual evaluation before the results are reported to the LIMS. This process saves nearly one minute hands-on time per sample compared to the previous Excel-based solution. For reference samples, SlimDna evaluates the majority (55%) of the samples without manual revision. SlimDna’s automated interpretation has proven to be very accurate and will soon replace more of the manual revisions. In the near future, we aim to develop SlimDna further, with for example a mixture module supporting the reporting officers in analysis.

A comparative analysis of the discrimination conclusions for medical litigation cases of a hospital

Objective To compare the differences found between the proportion of responsibility between in-house experts of the hospital and that of judicial appraisals for 52 cases of medical disputes of a hospital in recent years. Methods A total of 52 cases of disputes were selected, which were evaluated by the in-house experts screening meeting at a tertiary hospital in Beijing from 2015 to 2018.According to the causes of these disputes, these cases were divided into seven categories, calculating respectively the mean value of the proportion of judicial appraisal responsibility and that of in-house experts for all cases of the same category.The paired t test was used to compare the consistency of the above two methods. Results The overall level of judicial appraisal responsibility(35.00%)was significantly higher than the in-house expert screening(20.96%). Among them, the cases of improper selection of treatment plan, improper operation of surgery or insufficient evaluation of surgical difficulty risk, and medical disputes caused by complications, the degree of responsibility of the judicial appraisal institutions was quite different from that of in-house experts of the hospital. Conclusions Because the judicial appraisal agencies have certain difficulties in the identification of complex medical technology problems, it is recommended to establish a library of judicial appraisal experts as soon as possible to encourage the experts to participate in the trial of disputes. Key words: Medical disputes; Medical litigation; Judicial identification; Responsibility screening; Comparison

The impact of emotional self-management on benefit offerings and employment growth: an analysis of the fastest growing businesses in the United States

Increases in the cost of benefit offerings have led organizations to cut back benefits in an effort to reduce overall labor costs. Since benefits are difficult to change within an employment contract, we investigated how entrepreneurs reconcile the need to stay fiscally competitive while retaining top talent. Using Entrepreneur Magazine’s list of “Hot 500” fast-growth firms, we surveyed the founders of these firms on their emotional self-management and combined these self-reported responses with objective firm-level data on employment and benefit offerings, gathered using Entrepreneur Magazine’s in-house experts, Princeton Review. Based on a review of the literature, we hypothesized that entrepreneurs’ emotional self-management moderates the relationship between the size of the firm and the total number of benefits offered to employees. Our results with 134 respondents supported this hypothesis. In addition, results showed that the total number of benefits offered to employees was positively related to employment growth as a short-term outcome.

Securing Scientific Understanding: Expert Judges in Finnish Environmental Administrative Judicial Review

Finland has opted for an "internalized solution" when it comes to securing courts access to adequate scientific knowledge: in the administrative courts, in-house expert judges are part of the court's panel. The expert judges have scientific or technical education but no lawyer's qualifications, yet are considered judges as much as the judicial ones. In the Supreme Administrative Court and in the first court of appeal most, albeit not all, of the environmental cases are heard by panels with expert judges - notably, the cases dealing with nature conservation but not with the Water Act or the Environmental Protection Act are problematic in not receiving such attention. The combination of administrative judicial system of broad scope of review, in-house environmental expert judges and inquisitorial and investigative approach enables thorough consideration of the cases, allowing for an elegant solution to the fundamental epistemological and ontological challenges faced by environmental regulation - namely those of "legal questions and scientific answers". The Finnish solution brings indisputable benefits and as such is recommended to other jurisdictions. Domestically, we suggest that national legislation be amended in order to convene cases dealing with nature conservation matters to the administrative court with expert members as well.

Putting resilient sustainability into strategy decisions – case studies

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the results of testing a new approach to strategic sustainability and resilience – Sustainable Resilient Strategic Decision-Support (SuReSDS™). Design/methodology/approach The approach was developed and tested using action-research case studies at industrial companies. It successfully allowed the participants to capture different types of value affected by their choices, optimise each strategy’s resilience against different future scenarios and compare the results to find a “best” option. Findings SuReSDS™ enabled a novel integration of environmental and social sustainability into strategy by considering significant risks or opportunities for an enhanced group of stakeholders. It assisted users to identify and manage risks from different kinds of sustainability-related uncertainty by applying resilience techniques. Users incorporated insights into real-world strategies. Research limitations/implications Since the case studies and test organisations are limited in number, generalisation from the results is difficult and requires further research. Practical implications The approach enables companies to utilise in-house and external experts more effectively to develop sustainable and resilient strategies. Originality/value The research described develops theories linking sustainability and resilience for organisations, particularly for strategy, to provide a new consistent, rigorous and flexible approach for applying these theories. The approach has been tested successfully and benefited real-world strategy decisions.

Designing and evaluating vascular access training using educational theory.

Clinical skills learning is commonplace for all health professionals, with many training programmes incorporating multiple modes of facilitation, aligned to clinical standards and evidence-based research. There is often variance, however, in the facilitation of training programmes across healthcare settings and disciplines, highlighting differing levels of knowledge and clinical competence and illustrating a need for standardisation of training. Evidence illustrates many different approaches to learning from the traditional 'see one, do one, teach one', to academic facilitation by clinical skills tutors, to in-house expert facilitation. There has been a significant change in the medical education paradigm towards a more structured work-based competency assessed approach to learning. This paper explores the theoretical aspects of clinical skills learning and leadership theory in healthcare practice, placing emphasis on interprofessional and collaborative working and learning partnerships.

Challenges of software developers: the Namibian Government experience

Almost 15 years after the National Development Program (NDP) was initiated, the Namibian Government continue to outsource most of its software development to companies from other countries. This is considered by the general populace of the country to have a negative impact on the economy, as well as skill and knowledge transfer. This research, through multiple case studies, examined and discusses the impact of lack of in-house software development experts in the country. From the empirical study, a framework for software development skill (FSDS) was developed. The framework consists of factors which include strategic objectives of the government, strategic objectives of the IT divisions, policy and standards, IT management support and skills and development. The primary aim of the FSDS is to assist the Namibian Government institutions to understand the influencing factors, in building software development capacity in the country.

Challenges of software developers: the Namibian Government experience

Almost 15 years after the National Development Program (NDP) was initiated, the Namibian Government continue to outsource most of its software development to companies from other countries. This is considered by the general populace of the country to have a negative impact on the economy, as well as skill and knowledge transfer. This research, through multiple case studies, examined and discusses the impact of lack of in-house software development experts in the country. From the empirical study, a framework for software development skill (FSDS) was developed. The framework consists of factors which include strategic objectives of the government, strategic objectives of the IT divisions, policy and standards, IT management support and skills and development. The primary aim of the FSDS is to assist the Namibian Government institutions to understand the influencing factors, in building software development capacity in the country.