Muhammad Naveed Anwar

Chi-Squared, Yule’s Q and Likelihood Ratios in Tabular Audiology Data

In this chapter, we have used the chi-squared test and Yule’s Q measure to discover associations in tables of patient audiology data. These records are examples of heterogeneous medical records, since they contain audiograms, textual notes and typical relational fields. In our first experiment we used the chi-squared measure to discover associations between the different fields of audiology data such as patient gender and patient age with diagnosis and the type of hearing aid worn. Then, in our second experiment we used Yule’s Q to discover the strength and direction of the significant associations found by the chi-squared measure. Finally, we examined the likelihood ratio used in Bayesian evidence evaluation. We discuss our findings in the context of producing an audiology decision support system.

Entrepreneurial marketing in online businesses: The case of ethnic minority entrepreneurs in the UK

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the marketing of online businesses operated by ethnic minority entrepreneurs. The authors apply an entrepreneurial marketing lens to explore how such entrepreneurs draw on the resources to market their businesses. They also consider whether online businesses offer such entrepreneurs the opportunity to break out of the highly competitive sectors with which they are traditionally associated. Design/methodology/approach Key informant interviews are undertaken with 22 entrepreneurs operating online businesses in the UK and augmented by complementary sources of data such as their websites and press coverage. Findings Use of an entrepreneurial marketing perspective demonstrates that marketing in such businesses is not haphazard or chaotic. Rather it reflects the emergent and flexible use of resources. The affordances of online businesses appear to offer opportunities for break out, but the reliance on incremental experimentation and copying others results in highly homogeneous approaches to marketing. The authors also provide empirical evidence of the link between visa status and entrepreneurial choices. Originality/value Despite the popularity of online businesses, previous studies have not explored them as an opportunity for ethnic minority entrepreneurs. This study moves the consideration of break out from market-entry to the ongoing marketing activities that sustain a business. It also demonstrates how the domains of ethnic minority entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial marketing can be brought together via a focus on resources. Finally, it enriches entrepreneurial marketing by evidencing connections with notions of effectuation and entrepreneur-venture fit.

Mining and analysis of audiology data to find significant factors associated with tinnitus masker

ObjectivesThe objective of this research is to find the factors associated with tinnitus masker from the literature, and by using the large amount of audiology data available from a large NHS (National Health Services, UK) hearing aid clinic. The factors evaluated were hearing impairment, age, gender, hearing aid type, mould and clinical comments.DesignThe research includes literature survey for factors associated with tinnitus masker, and performs the analysis of audiology data using statistical and data mining techniques.SettingThis research uses a large audiology data but it also faced the problem of limited data for tinnitus.ParticipantsIt uses 1,316 records for tinnitus and other diagnoses, and 10,437 records of clinical comments from a hearing aid clinic.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe research is looking for variables associated with tinnitus masker, and in future, these variables can be combined into a single model to develop a decision support system to predict about tinnitus masker for a patient.ResultsThe results demonstrated that tinnitus maskers are more likely to be fit to individuals with milder forms of hearing loss, and the factors age, gender, type of hearing aid and mould were all found significantly associated with tinnitus masker. In particular, those patients having Age < =55 years were more likely to wear a tinnitus masker, as well as those with milder forms of hearing loss. ITE (in the ear) hearing aids were also found associated with tinnitus masker. A feedback on the results of association of mould with tinnitus masker from a professional audiologist of a large NHS (National Health Services, UK) was also taken to better understand them. The results were obtained with different accuracy for different techniques. For example, the chi-squared test results were obtained with 95% accuracy, for Support and Confidence only those results were retained which had more than 1% Support and 80% Confidence.ConclusionsThe variables audiograms, age, gender, hearing aid type and mould were found associated with the choice of tinnitus masker in the literature and by using statistical and data mining techniques. The further work in this research would lead to the development of a decision support system for tinnitus masker with an explanation that how that decision was obtained.

Data mining of audiology patient records: factors influencing the choice of hearing aid type

In this paper we describe our analysis of a database of over 180,000 patient records, collected from over 23,000 patients, by the hearing aid clinic at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, UK. These records consist of audiograms (graphs of the faintest sounds audible to the patient at six different pitches), categorical data (such as age, gender, diagnosis and hearing aid type) and brief free text notes made by the technicians. We mine this data to determine which factors contribute to the decision to fit a BTE (worn behind the ear) hearing aid as opposed to an ITE (worn in the ear) hearing aid. From PCA (principal component analysis) we determined four main audiogram types, and we relate these to the type of hearing aid chosen. We combine the effects of age, gender, diagnosis, masker, mould and individual audiogram frequencies into a single model by means of logistic regression. We also discovered some significant keywords in the free text fields by using the chi-squared (χ2) test, which can also be used in the model. The final model can act a decision support tool to help decide whether an individual patient should be offered a BTE or an ITE hearing aid.

The Role of Entrepreneur-Venture Fit in Online Home-based Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review

Home-based businesses and their founders represent an important, but under-researched facet of entrepreneurship. Far from being small, hobby-businesses with little economic impact, home-based business make significant contribution to national economies in terms of both turnover and employment. Online home-based businesses have been recognised as an important and distinct sector of the home-based business domain, offering unique opportunity for innovation and business diversity. The paper presents a systematic literature review of extant research on online home-based entrepreneurs and their businesses. The findings of the review are structured and discussed using the theoretical lens of entrepreneur-venture fit. Use of this lens allows the study to bring coherence to previously fragmented extant studies, providing a basis for future research in this domain. The study also develops a novel model of entrepreneur-venture fit in the specific case of online home-based businesses. This allows us to suggest five positive interactions between entrepreneurial and venture characteristics. It also allows us to suggest a number of previously unidentified negative interactions, which may result in entrepreneurs becoming ‘locked-in’ and suffering multiple sources of stress.

Hearing Aid Classification Based on Audiology Data

Presented is a comparative study of two machine learning models (MLP Neural Network and Bayesian Network) as part of a decision support system for prescribing ITE (in the ear) and BTE (behind the ear) aids for people with hearing difficulties. The models are developed/trained and evaluated on a large set of patient records from major NHS audiology centre in England. The two main questions which the models aim to address are: 1) What type of hearing aid (ITE/BTE) should be prescribed to the patient? and 2) Which factors influence the choice of ITE as opposed to BTE hearing aids? The models developed here were evaluated against actual prescriptions given by the doctors and showed relatively high classification rates with the MLP network achieving slightly better results.

Decision Support System for the Selection of an ITE or a BTE Hearing Aid

The purpose of this research is to mine a large set of heterogeneous audiology data to create a decision support system (DSS) to choose between two hearing aid types (ITE and BTE aid). This research is based on the data analysis of audiology data using various statistical and data mining techniques. It uses the data of a large NHS (National Health Services, UK) facility. It uses 180,000 records (covering more than 23,000 different patients) from a hearing aid clinic. The developed system uses an unconventional method to predict hearing aid type for a patient and it can be used as a second opinion by audiologists for complex cases. After modifying the system to take account of the feedback from a professional audiologist, the success rates obtained were in the ranges 63 to 66 percent. In this research an automatic system was developed to choose between an ITE or a BTE hearing aid type with an explanation facility that can be used as a second opinion by audiologist in cases where the choice of an ITE or a BTE hearing aid is not clear cut. This analysis of audiology data and DSS will provide supplementary information for audiology experts and hearing aid dispensers. This type of system may also be of interest to manufacturers of hearing technologies in using as a ready means for their telephone customer services staff to check data, discovering data in audiology records will also be good for general awareness about the suitability of hearing aid type.