scholarly journals Using supervised machine learning to identify efficient blocking schemes for record linkage

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Scott R. Campbell ◽  
Dean M. Resnick ◽  
Christine S. Cox ◽  
Lisa B. Mirel

Record linkage enables survey data to be integrated with other data sources, expanding the analytic potential of both sources. However, depending on the number of records being linked, the processing time can be prohibitive. This paper describes a case study using a supervised machine learning algorithm, known as the Sequential Coverage Algorithm (SCA). The SCA was used to develop the join strategy for two data sources, the National Center for Health Statistics’ (NCHS) 2016 National Hospital Care Survey (NHCS) and the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Enrollment Database (EDB), during record linkage. Due to the size of the CMS data, common record joining methods (i.e. blocking) were used to reduce the number of pairs that need to be evaluated to identify the vast majority of matches. NCHS conducted a case study examining how the SCA improved the efficiency of blocking. This paper describes how the SCA was used to design the blocking used in this linkage.

Author(s):  
Dean M Resnick ◽  
Lisa B Mirel

Probabilistic record linkage implies that there is some level of uncertainty related to the classification of pairs as links or non-links vis-à-vis their true match status. As record linkage is usually performed as a preliminary step to developing statistical estimates, the question then is how does this linkage uncertainty propagate to them? In this paper, we develop an approach to estimate the impact of linkage uncertainty on derived estimates by using a re-sampling approach. For each iteration of the re-sampling, pairs are classified as links or non-links by Monte-Carlo assignment to model estimated true match probabilities. By looking at the range of estimates produced in a series of re-samples, we can estimate the distribution of derived statistics under the prevailing incidence of linkage uncertainty. For this analysis we use the results of linking the 2014 National Hospital Care Survey to the National Death Index performed at the National Center for Health Statistics. We assess the precision of hospital-level death rate estimates.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shikha N. Khera ◽  
Divya

Information technology (IT) industry in India has been facing a systemic issue of high attrition in the past few years, resulting in monetary and knowledge-based loses to the companies. The aim of this research is to develop a model to predict employee attrition and provide the organizations opportunities to address any issue and improve retention. Predictive model was developed based on supervised machine learning algorithm, support vector machine (SVM). Archival employee data (consisting of 22 input features) were collected from Human Resource databases of three IT companies in India, including their employment status (response variable) at the time of collection. Accuracy results from the confusion matrix for the SVM model showed that the model has an accuracy of 85 per cent. Also, results show that the model performs better in predicting who will leave the firm as compared to predicting who will not leave the company.


Friction ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vigneashwara Pandiyan ◽  
Josef Prost ◽  
Georg Vorlaufer ◽  
Markus Varga ◽  
Kilian Wasmer

AbstractFunctional surfaces in relative contact and motion are prone to wear and tear, resulting in loss of efficiency and performance of the workpieces/machines. Wear occurs in the form of adhesion, abrasion, scuffing, galling, and scoring between contacts. However, the rate of the wear phenomenon depends primarily on the physical properties and the surrounding environment. Monitoring the integrity of surfaces by offline inspections leads to significant wasted machine time. A potential alternate option to offline inspection currently practiced in industries is the analysis of sensors signatures capable of capturing the wear state and correlating it with the wear phenomenon, followed by in situ classification using a state-of-the-art machine learning (ML) algorithm. Though this technique is better than offline inspection, it possesses inherent disadvantages for training the ML models. Ideally, supervised training of ML models requires the datasets considered for the classification to be of equal weightage to avoid biasing. The collection of such a dataset is very cumbersome and expensive in practice, as in real industrial applications, the malfunction period is minimal compared to normal operation. Furthermore, classification models would not classify new wear phenomena from the normal regime if they are unfamiliar. As a promising alternative, in this work, we propose a methodology able to differentiate the abnormal regimes, i.e., wear phenomenon regimes, from the normal regime. This is carried out by familiarizing the ML algorithms only with the distribution of the acoustic emission (AE) signals captured using a microphone related to the normal regime. As a result, the ML algorithms would be able to detect whether some overlaps exist with the learnt distributions when a new, unseen signal arrives. To achieve this goal, a generative convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture based on variational auto encoder (VAE) is built and trained. During the validation procedure of the proposed CNN architectures, we were capable of identifying acoustics signals corresponding to the normal and abnormal wear regime with an accuracy of 97% and 80%. Hence, our approach shows very promising results for in situ and real-time condition monitoring or even wear prediction in tribological applications.


Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 527
Author(s):  
Eran Elhaik ◽  
Dan Graur

In the last 15 years or so, soft selective sweep mechanisms have been catapulted from a curiosity of little evolutionary importance to a ubiquitous mechanism claimed to explain most adaptive evolution and, in some cases, most evolution. This transformation was aided by a series of articles by Daniel Schrider and Andrew Kern. Within this series, a paper entitled “Soft sweeps are the dominant mode of adaptation in the human genome” (Schrider and Kern, Mol. Biol. Evolut. 2017, 34(8), 1863–1877) attracted a great deal of attention, in particular in conjunction with another paper (Kern and Hahn, Mol. Biol. Evolut. 2018, 35(6), 1366–1371), for purporting to discredit the Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution (Kimura 1968). Here, we address an alleged novelty in Schrider and Kern’s paper, i.e., the claim that their study involved an artificial intelligence technique called supervised machine learning (SML). SML is predicated upon the existence of a training dataset in which the correspondence between the input and output is known empirically to be true. Curiously, Schrider and Kern did not possess a training dataset of genomic segments known a priori to have evolved either neutrally or through soft or hard selective sweeps. Thus, their claim of using SML is thoroughly and utterly misleading. In the absence of legitimate training datasets, Schrider and Kern used: (1) simulations that employ many manipulatable variables and (2) a system of data cherry-picking rivaling the worst excesses in the literature. These two factors, in addition to the lack of negative controls and the irreproducibility of their results due to incomplete methodological detail, lead us to conclude that all evolutionary inferences derived from so-called SML algorithms (e.g., S/HIC) should be taken with a huge shovel of salt.


Hypertension ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (5) ◽  
pp. 1595-1604
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Buffolo ◽  
Jacopo Burrello ◽  
Alessio Burrello ◽  
Daniel Heinrich ◽  
Christian Adolf ◽  
...  

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is the cause of arterial hypertension in 4% to 6% of patients, and 30% of patients with PA are affected by unilateral and surgically curable forms. Current guidelines recommend screening for PA ≈50% of patients with hypertension on the basis of individual factors, while some experts suggest screening all patients with hypertension. To define the risk of PA and tailor the diagnostic workup to the individual risk of each patient, we developed a conventional scoring system and supervised machine learning algorithms using a retrospective cohort of 4059 patients with hypertension. On the basis of 6 widely available parameters, we developed a numerical score and 308 machine learning-based models, selecting the one with the highest diagnostic performance. After validation, we obtained high predictive performance with our score (optimized sensitivity of 90.7% for PA and 92.3% for unilateral PA [UPA]). The machine learning-based model provided the highest performance, with an area under the curve of 0.834 for PA and 0.905 for diagnosis of UPA, with optimized sensitivity of 96.6% for PA, and 100.0% for UPA, at validation. The application of the predicting tools allowed the identification of a subgroup of patients with very low risk of PA (0.6% for both models) and null probability of having UPA. In conclusion, this score and the machine learning algorithm can accurately predict the individual pretest probability of PA in patients with hypertension and circumvent screening in up to 32.7% of patients using a machine learning-based model, without omitting patients with surgically curable UPA.


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