DePaul University

About: DePaul University is a education organization based out in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 5658 authors who have published 11562 publications receiving 295257 citations.

Chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and multiple chemical sensitivities in a community-based sample of persons with chronic fatigue syndrome-like symptoms.

Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to determine illness comorbidity rates for individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), and multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS). An additional objective was to identify characteristics related to the severity of fatigue, disability, and psychiatric comorbidity in each of these illness groups. Methods A random sample of 18,675 residents in Chicago, Illinois, was first interviewed by telephone. A control group and a group of individuals with chronic fatigue accompanied by at least four minor symptoms associated with CFS received medical and psychiatric examinations. Results Of the 32 individuals with CFS, 40.6% met criteria for MCS and 15.6% met criteria for FM. Individuals with MCS or more than one diagnosis reported more physical fatigue than those with no diagnosis. Individuals with more than one diagnosis also reported greater mental fatigue and were less likely to be working than those with no diagnosis. Individuals with CFS, MCS, FM, or more than one diagnosis reported greater disability than those with no diagnosis. Conclusions Rates of coexisting disorders were lower than those reported in prior studies. Discrepancies may be in part attributable to differences in sampling procedures. People with CFS, MCS, or FM endure significant disability in terms of physical, occupational, and social functioning, and those with more than one of these diagnoses also report greater severity of physical and mental fatigue. The findings illustrate differences among the illness groups in the range of functional impairment experienced.

The incremental funding method: data-driven software development

Abstract: Software development projects don't get funded unless they return clearly defined value to the business. Demands for shorter investment periods, faster time-to-market, and increased agility require new, radical software development approaches. These approaches must draw on the expertise of both software architects and financial stakeholders and open the traditional black box of software development to rigorous financial analysis. We can accomplish this only by positioning software development as a value-creation activity in which business analysis is integral. The incremental funding method is a financially informed approach to software development. IFM maximizes returns by delivering functionality in "chunks" of customer-valued features, carefully sequenced to optimize the project's net present value (NPV). We derived the IFM concepts from several years' experience in winning competitive contracts for large-systems integration and application development projects.

Does prevalence mitigate relevance? The moderating effect of group-level OCB on employee performance.

Abstract: This article explores multilevel relationships between group-level OCB, individual-level OCB, and work performance. We also discuss conceptualizing OCB with regard to context and multiple levels of analysis. We hypothesize that group-level OCB moderates the relationship between individual-level OCB and job performance. Results based on 100 work groups in a manufacturing firm indicate that group-level OCB significantly moderated the relationship between individual-level OCB and job performance. Comparing contexts in which group-level OCB was rare with those in which it was prevalent, we found that high individual-level OCB yielded greater significant increases in job performance ratings when group-level OCB was rare.

The Long-Run Role of the Media: Evidence from Initial Public Offerings

Abstract: The unique characteristics of the U.S. initial public offering IPO process, particularly the strict quiet period regulations, allow us to explore the effects of media coverage when the coverage does not contain genuine news i.e., hard information that was previously unknown. We show that a simple, objective measure of pre-IPO media coverage is positively related to the stock's long-term value, liquidity, analyst coverage, and institutional investor ownership. Our results are robust to additional controls for size, to using abnormal or excess media, and to an instrumental variable approach. We also find that pre-IPO media coverage is negatively related to future expected returns, measured by the implied cost of capital. In all, we find a long-term role for media coverage, consistent with Merton's attention or investor recognition hypothesis. This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, finance.

Fixed Points, Nash Equilibria, and the Existential Theory of the Reals

Abstract: We introduce the complexity class źź$\exists \mathbb {R}$ based on the existential theory of the reals. We show that the definition of źź$\exists \mathbb {R}$ is robust in the sense that even the fragment of the theory expressing solvability of systems of strict polynomial inequalities leads to the same complexity class. Several natural and well-known problems turn out to be complete for źź$\exists \mathbb {R}$; here we show that the complexity of decision variants of fixed-point problems, including Nash equilibria, are complete for this class, complementing work by Etessami and Yannakakis [13].