Application of Big Data Analytics in Precision Medicine: Lesson for Ethiopia (open access)

Application of Big Data Analytics in Precision Medicine: Lesson for Ethiopia

Precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that considers individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person. Big data analytics (BDA) using cutting-edge technologies helps to design models that can diagnose, treat and predict diseases. In Ethiopia, healthcare service delivery faces many challenges specifically in relation to prescribing the right medicine to the right patient at the right time. Thus, patients face challenges ranging from staying on treatment plans longer, and then leaving treatment, and finally dying of complications. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore the trends, challenges, and opportunities of applying BDA in precision medicine globally and take lessons for Ethiopia through a systematic literature review of 19 peer reviewed articles from five databases. The findings indicated that cancer in general, epilepsy, and systemic diseases altogether are areas currently getting big attention. The challenges are attributed to the nature of health data, failure in collaboration for data sharing, ethical and legal issues, interoperability of systems, poor knowledge skills and culture, and poor infrastructure. Development of modern technologies, experimental technologies and methods, cloud computing, Internet of Things, social networks and Ethiopia’s government initiative to promote private technological firms could be an …
Date: June 2022
Creator: Woldemariam, Misganaw Tadesse & Alemneh, Daniel Gelaw
System: The UNT Digital Library
Increasing Information Certainty for Post-Traumatic Growth (open access)

Increasing Information Certainty for Post-Traumatic Growth

Trauma, and its associated effects, can be conceptualized as a period of information uncertainty. The natural psychological response to trauma is a period of post-traumatic stress. Trauma occurs when an existing knowledge base has been challenged. Any event that challenges important components of an individual’s assumptive world is said to be traumatic. This post-traumatic period is akin to many theories and concepts in information science including uncertainty reduction, Everyday Life Information Seeking, Sensemaking Theory, Making Meaning and Anomalous States of Knowledge. One possible outcome after the post- traumatic period is post-traumatic growth. Researchers agree post-traumatic growth primarily occurs across one or more of the following domains: personal strength, new possibilities, relating to others, appreciation of life and spiritual change. That is, people affected by trauma tend to grow when they find new or additional paths of information certainty.
Date: June 2022
Creator: Bank, Nicole & Allen, Jeff M., 1968-
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Interactive Web-Based Dashboard to Examine Trending Topics: Application to Financial Journals (open access)

An Interactive Web-Based Dashboard to Examine Trending Topics: Application to Financial Journals

Understanding trends is helpful to identify future behaviors in the field, and the roles of people, places, and institutions in setting those trends. Although traditional clustering strategies can group articles into topics, these techniques do not focus on topics over limited timescales; additionally, even when articles are grouped, the generated results are extensive and difficult to navigate. To address these concerns, we create an interactive dashboard that helps an expert in the field to better understand and quantify trends in their area of research. Trend detection is performed using the time-biased document clustering introduced in Behpour et al. (2021) study. The developed and freely available web application enables users to detect well defined trending topics in financial journals by experimenting with various levels of temporal bias - from detecting short-timescale trends to allowing those trends to spread over longer times. Experts can readily drill down into the identified topics to understand their meaning through keywords, example articles, and time range. Overall, the interactive dashboard will allow experts in the field to sift through the vast literature to identify the concepts, people, places, and institutions most critical to the field.
Date: June 2022
Creator: Phan, Ngoc; Madali, Nayana Pampapura; Behpour, Sahar & Xiao, Ting
System: The UNT Digital Library
Metadata Practices of Academic Libraries  in Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar: Current  State, Risks, and Perspectives for  Knowledge Management (open access)

Metadata Practices of Academic Libraries in Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar: Current State, Risks, and Perspectives for Knowledge Management

Developing, implementing, and managing metadata is crucial to successful knowledge management, and academic libraries have traditionally played a central role in these activities. The Arabian Gulf countries are underrepresented in the existing research into library metadata practices. This exploratory study used semi-structured interviews of metadata managers at 8 universities with the goal of developing understanding of the current state of metadata practices, including descriptive cataloging, identity management, and knowledge organization in academic libraries of three Arabian Gulf countries (Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar), as well as potential future developments to facilitate discovery of resources. Findings provide insights into this previously under-researched area and contribute to understanding of knowledge management and risks on a global scale.
Date: June 2022
Creator: Zavalina, Oksana & Aljalahmah, Saleh
System: The UNT Digital Library
Prediction of Concrete Bridge Deck Condition Ratting Based on Climate Data in Addition to Bridge Data: Five States as a Case Study (open access)

Prediction of Concrete Bridge Deck Condition Ratting Based on Climate Data in Addition to Bridge Data: Five States as a Case Study

Evaluating the impact of learning from climate data, in addition to bridge data, on the performance of concrete deck condition rating prediction is critical for identifying the right data needed to enhance bridge maintenance decision making. Few studies have considered such an evaluation and utilized a small size of samples that prevent revealing the knowledge hidden within the big size of data. Although, such evaluation over big data seems quite necessary, class imbalance problem makes it challenging. To alleviate such a problem, five states, including Alabama, Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, were selected as the case study. Not only are the states located in three different climatically consistent regions defined by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), but also their concrete deck conditions ratings are somewhat balanced. To conduct the evaluation, this research developed the bridge data set pertaining to 56,288 bridges across the afore-mentioned states through employing the GIS technology. The bridge data set contains bridge data derived from National Bridge Inventory (NBI), and climate data derived from Parameter-elevation Relationships on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM) climate maps and NOAA. Then, two machine learning algorithms, including random forest and GBM, were trained - with and without climate …
Date: June 2022
Creator: Fard, Fariba
System: The UNT Digital Library
Research Teams: Fostering Scholarship  and Practice (open access)

Research Teams: Fostering Scholarship and Practice

This workshop is presented by members of a University of North Texas research team. First, the team will overview their experience as members of the research team and share experience in areas such as trust formation, team roles, productivity, work-life balance, faculty-students interaction, peer and faculty mentorship, dissertation preparation, and job seeking. Second, the workshop will discuss and brainstorm how this format can be implemented for organizations both with faculty-student teams and with peer-directed teams. Finally, successes and challenges are openly discussed with audience.
Date: June 2022
Creator: Allen, Jeff M., 1968-; Khader, Malak; Njeri, Millicent & Rosellini, Amy
System: The UNT Digital Library
Social Media and People Perception of Global Warming During Critical Environmental Events: the Impact of Misinformation through the Lens of Social Noise (open access)

Social Media and People Perception of Global Warming During Critical Environmental Events: the Impact of Misinformation through the Lens of Social Noise

Global warming is the term used to describe critical environmental issues and concerns. Social media such as Twitter provides a platform for people to share information, exchange ideas, and express their opinions about current and timely issues. This study utilized contextual analysis to analyze data collected from Twitter for the hashtag "global warming" during the period 2010 & 2011. Using sentiment analysis and topic modeling, the study aimed first at assessing people's perception towards global warming issues, and second study the impact of misinformation from the standpoint of social noise on people's perception of global warming during critical environmental events. The outcome of this study helps create a better understanding of the environmental issues discussed on social media. The sentiment analysis from the data analyzed so far shows that most of the tweets were based on Twitter users' personal opinions and not science. The topic modeling results suggest that Twitter users typically tweeted when a major environmental event occurred due to global warming. Topic modeling also aids in the identification of terms that is associated with social noise. The presence of social noise suggests that misinformation does exist and spreads faster.
Date: June 2022
Creator: Madali, Nayana Pampapura; Alsaid, Manar & Hawamdeh, Suliman M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Stock2Vec: An Embedding to Improve Predictive Models for Companies (open access)

Stock2Vec: An Embedding to Improve Predictive Models for Companies

Building predictive models for companies often relies on inference using historical data of companies in the same industry sector. However, companies are similar across a variety of dimensions that should be leveraged in relevant prediction problems. This is particularly true for large, complex organizations which may not be well defined by a single industry and have no clear peers. To enable prediction using company information across a variety of dimensions, we create an embedding of company stocks, Stock2Vec, which can be easily added to any prediction model that applies to companies with associated stock prices. We describe the process of creating this rich vector representation from stock price fluctuations and characterize what the dimensions represent. We then conduct comprehensive experiments to evaluate this embedding in applied machine learning problems in various business contexts. Our experiment results demonstrate that the four features in the Stock2Vec embedding can readily augment existing cross-company models and enhance cross-company predictions.
Date: June 2022
Creator: Yi, Ziruo; Xiao, Ting; Kaz-Onyeakazi, Ijeoma; Ratnam, Cheran; Medeiros, Theophilus; Nelson, Phillip et al.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Using Data Visualization Tools to Mitigate the Influx of Information in Organizations (open access)

Using Data Visualization Tools to Mitigate the Influx of Information in Organizations

Considerable research has been conducted on the topic of information overload using different approaches, from marketing and customer demand to information technologies and sciences, and even among mental health professionals. In business the critical question is how does information overload impact processes, operations, and profitability, and how can data visualization help to solve issues with data management and consumption in organizations. The ability to quickly and effectively process information and make decisions equates to organizational survival in a dynamic, knowledge-based economy where all segments of society are heavily affected by information technologies and systems and data management industries. The growing number of systems apparatuses challenges both individuals and organizations, resulting in reports of fatigue and experiences that compromise successful performance. The objective of this literature review is to discuss how data visualization tools help address information overload and optimize decision making and the business intelligence process in organizations. It concludes that data visualization, indeed, is critical in helping individuals capture, manage, organize, visualize, and present understandable data, but that decision making is affected by cognitive factors that interfere with data processing and interpretation in decision makers.
Date: June 2022
Creator: Merlo, Tereza Raquel
System: The UNT Digital Library