Category: research

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) stores valuable information on
patient records in digital form. The amount of data in the EHR is increasing
due to government mandates and technological innovation. Patient data
are recorded using sensors and medical reports. Given huge amounts of
heterogeneous data in the EHR, there is a need for effective methods to
store and analyze these data for meaningful interpretations. This study
focuses on various analysis techniques for analyzing and retrieving
required information from big data in the EHR. Many Hive queries are
conducted in the Hadoop distributed file system to extract valuable
information. The study also proposes and demonstrates the use of Tableau
as a data analysis technique for effectively deducing valuable information
in the form of visual graphs.

Zhenlin Kan, Xinru Cheng, Seung Hyun Kim,Yuting Jin

Summary
Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in humans (ASCO 2012). Pancreatic cancer cells exhibit a different gene expression profile from normal cells, with approximately 122 over-expressed proteins. A novel method was created to find the most important areas for future drug development based on influential disease-causing proteins in pancreatic cancer that currently lack drug treatments.

Anvita Gupta, Sejal Aggarwal, Sangeeta Agrawal

Click here for PDF file: February2014(1)

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed rapid and vigorous industrial advances, and as a result, emissions of various pollutants, particularly carbon dioxide, have increased sharply and threaten the environment at the global level in a phenomenon widely referred to as global warming. To mitigate global warming, international agencies have considered the concept of the “carbon trading system” or the “emission trading system” (ETS) and attempted to apply it to various countries. Many E.U. countries currently participate, and a few countries in Asia have been willing to consider the idea. However, powerful countries such as the U.S. and China have not fully embracing this scheme. This study examines the differences between the U.S., a developed country, and Korea, a developing country, in their attitudes toward the most important aspect of the ETS as well as their choice. The results based on a sample of 60 students (30 Korean students and 30 U.S. students) indicate that the respondents generally perceived a need for the ETS. Korean students were more likely to perceive a need for the ETS. The respondents generally had favorable attitudes toward the ETS, and Korean students were more likely to have favorable attitudes toward the ETS. The respondents generally emphasized low economic pressure as the most important factor influencing ETS success. These results have important implications for international agencies and policymakers wishing to identify practical methods for mitigating the issue of global warming.

B.Yoo

Summary
Ink costs are a large, recurring expense for school districts worldwide. Moreover, ink production, usage, and disposal have a detrimental effect on the environment. Decreasing the amount of ink used can therefore have a positive impact on a school district’s budget and on the environment. This study identifies fonts that use ink most efficiently and estimates the amount of money a single school and a school district can save on ink by choosing efficient fonts for student handouts. From a carefully selected sample of handouts used by the school’s teachers, the frequency distribution of character usage was determined. Based on these data, a document modeling an “average” school handout in terms of character frequency was created. This document was replicated with different fonts reflecting the current preferences of the teachers in the school. APVSoft APFill® Ink Coverage Software was used to estimate the ink usage for each of these font types (i.e., the percentage of a printed page that contained ink). A novel experiment was performed to verify these findings by cutting out enlarged shapes of the most frequently used letters in the most preferred fonts; the masses of these cutouts were then determined in order to estimate the relative difference in ink usage for different fonts. Based on the analysis, it was concluded that a switch to Garamond, the most efficient font, would reduce ink consumption by 24%, thereby decreasing environmental damage and saving the school district approximately $21,000 per year.

 

Suvir Mirchandani and Peter Pinko

Click here for PDF file: March2014(3)

Z.Li