Marist School

Healthcare claims adjudication suffers a lot of challenges in its operations because of manual clinical validation processes that use huge resources and yield inconsistent results when applied to different populations of reviewers. The use of Natural Language Processing and Large Language Models to automate clinical validation offers a transformational potential for payment integrity activities in payer organizations. Domain-adapted models of language models, such as BioBERT and ClinicalBERT, exhibit advanced performance in the task of clinical entity detection, medical terminology comprehension, and documentation pattern reasoning that is typical of real-world healthcare delivery. The introduction of the implementation strategies that focus on the gradual implementation, human-AI interaction, and ongoing quality control allows integrating the novel approach into the existing adjudication processes without deteriorating the quality of the results that are needed to comply with the regulations. The deployed systems are shown to have significant gains in processing efficiency, consistency of decisions, and the productivity of reviewers in comparison to traditional manual validation techniques. The features of enhanced explainability create transparent justifications to support appeals management and audit requests and establish trust among the clinical staff. The technology can resolve the underlying capacity issues of payer organizations by facilitating the processing of greater claim volumes without similarly large projections of staffing. Financial gains are attained in the form of lower processing fees, lower rate of appeals, and reduced adjudication time, which enhances the satisfaction of stakeholders. The development of such systems proceeds via the increased training data, improved architectures, and experience of operation that brings the ability to solve more and more complicated validation problems. The smart fusion of the sophisticated computational systems with human clinical knowledge generates validation workflows that will reach performance levels that are not feasible by either of the preceding methods.

It has been more than 23 years since Jim O’Neil, head of economic research at the investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS), wrote in an internal policy paper that four countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC). Seeking to attract investors, in his 2001 GS Global Economic Paper No. 66, “Building Better Global Economic BRICs,” O’Neil focused on investment opportunities in four developing countries— Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC), O’Neill further argued that the balance of world economic powers was already tilting in favor of these four countries which he labeled as “BRIC” economies. The BRIC nations embraced the term and invited South Africa In 2010 to join them. Hence the acronym BRIC became “BRICS.” In this paper, I plan to focus on economic progress of BRICS countries, as reflected in their GDP, international trade, and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). I will illustrate the power of BRICS as well as the global challenges these countries will face in the coming decades in achieving their mission to change the global order.

This essay presents a brief analysis of three popular Spanish films released between 2001 and 2012 that are set in the immediate post Civil War period and first decades of the Franco dictatorship. Specifically, it considers three films which aim to reconstruct and represent the experience of the men, women, and children who fought Francoism or who endured repression after the end of the Spanish Civil War: Silencio roto (Armendáriz 2001), El laberinto del fauno (Del Toro 2004), and 30 años de oscuridad (Martín 2012). This essay explores the way in which tropes of politics, history, resistance, and repression are represented in each film, and how filmmakers using popular cinematic forms have appropriated the Spanish Civil War and Franco period settings to comment on contemporary political and social issues in Spain. Most of the recent Spanish cinematic productions (fictional and documentary) that depict the Spanish Civil War and Franco period have focused on the moral vindication of the vanquished. The three films considered here aim to reconstruct the particular experience or memories of the Spanish maquis and topos, and the civilians who supported them in their struggles. Each of the films discussed has sought to play a role in the recasting of collective identity in Spain, and affords important insights into the social processes and experiences of the time in which they were created. In a world where the visual immediacy of cinematic images increasingly works to displace traditional historiography, these representations have become ever more important and merit discussion. This essay takes into account that these cinematic representations are subjective and mediated depictions of events, participants, and circumstances of the Civil War and Franco period, and suggests pedagogical approaches to discussing each film in order to enable students (and other viewers) to grasp how to distinguish between history and the historicizing effect of its representations.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes and reportedly overused in American-style football (ASF). However, assessment of ASF NSAID use in the context of cardiovascular risk has not been performed. We sought to characterize NSAID use patterns and the association with cardiovascular risk in a diverse cohort of high school and collegiate ASF athletes. A total of 226 ASF athletes, 60 endurance athletes, and 63 nonathletic controls were studied pre- and postseason with echocardiography, vascular applanation tonometry, and clinical data assessment. Qualitative NSAID use throughout the season was recorded at postseason. ASF athletes gained weight (Δ0.86 ± 3.9 kg, P < 0.001), increased systolic blood pressure (SBP, Δ3.1 ± 12 mm Hg, P < 0.001) and pulse wave velocity (Δ0.2 ± 0.6 m·s, P < 0.001), and decreased E' (Δ-1.4 ± 2.8 cm·s, P < 0.001) across one athletic season. Seventy-seven percent (n = 173) of ASF athletes reported that sport-specific NSAID use began in middle school. ASF NSAID use was more frequent with "weekly" (n = 42.19%) and "daily" (n = 32.14%) use compared with endurance athletes (P < 0.001) and controls (P = 0.02). ASF NSAID use increased in parallel with postseason SBP and weights. "Daily" ASF NSAID users demonstrated the highest postseason SBP (137 ± 13 vs 128 ± 13 mm Hg, P = 0.002) and weight (109.0 ± 18.6 vs 95.8 ± 20.5 kg, P = 0.002) compared with "never/rare" users. Adjusting for player position, SBP, pulse wave velocity, and E', increased weight (odds ratio = 1.04, 95% confidence interval = 1.0-1.08, P = 0.037) was associated with more frequent NSAID use. Habitual NSAID use commonly begins during adolescence, before full physical maturation, and is associated with cardiovascular risk, particularly increased weight, in ASF athletes. NSAID use frequency should be considered when risk stratifying high-risk ASF athletes.

Our work has focused on how to create a learning experience that is highly personally motivating for students, has a low barrier of entry for creation an artistic computational artifact, and is scalable for use in formal and informal education settings at the national level. We have created a learning environment called EarSketch that addresses student engagement through a STEAM learning experience that provides authentic learning in both the technical (i.e. computing) and artistic domains (i.e. music remixing). EarSketch is an integrated curriculum, software toolset, audio loop library, and social sharing site that teaches computing principles through digital music composition and remixing. Attendees will use Python to place audio clips, create rhythms, and add and control effects to a multi-track digital audio workstation (DAW) while learning computing concepts such as variables, iteration, conditionals, strings, lists, and functions. Participants write code to make music, with a focus on popular genres such as hip hop. The agenda outlines the pedagogy of connecting musical expression to computation. EarSketch has been used in introductory computing summer camps, secondary school classes, and is currently working towards integration with CS Principles pilot programs. All participants will need a laptop for running the EarSketch software. EarSketch will run on OSX and Windows laptops. Participants will also need headphones for listening to projects created using EarSketch. It is highly suggested that participants download the EarSketch installer at http://earsketch.gatech.edu/downloads and install the software prior to the workshop.

This study reports on a new instrument, the Academic Rational Beliefs Scale, designed to measure college students' academic beliefs along a rational‐irrational continuum. The new instrument is potentially useful when working with students experiencing academic difficulties. Information about test construction, reliability, validity, and generalizability are presented and implications, benefits, and cautions associated with use of the instrument as a college counseling tool are discussed.