Heritage Health Prize, a $3 million competition to predict who will go to hospital and for how long.
So as not to overwhelm anyone, we will be releasing the data in three waves. Today’s launch allows people to register and download the first instalment, which includes enough data for people to start trying out models. It includes claims data from Y1, information on members and the details of hospitalizations recorded in Y2.
The next instalment will be released on May 4 and will involve the release a more comprehensive dataset, including claims for later years as well as the test dataset against which entries will be judged. It is at this point that we will open up the competition to entries, reveal the performance threshold and begin posting the leaderboard.
Finally, the last release happens on June 4 and will include some ancillary data of prescriptions and lab tests.
Kaggle members don’t sign up again. To register, simply login and accept the rules before downloading the data.
Finally the Twitter hashtag for the competition is #drflix. Help spread the word.
This is NOT an April fool joke or a publicity stunt. It is also not meant to provoke discussion for the sake of provocation.
For a time, as I have studied both US and India , in what makes Government work or fail, academia work or fail, or businesses to work or fail- a common thread is the quality of people involved. Someone who is a wasteful businessman, will be a wasteful politician. Someone who is a flamboyant businessman with flair more than substance will continue that in public life.
Accordingly I have created a Facebook cause-
If Donald Trump can run for President, I can think of no one who has done more for the American South. Unlike the tech heavy, Stanford dominated boom in California, the Mid West and South have been declining centers of influence. Cities like Austin Texas or Raleigh, North California are the exception rather than norm there. A friend who went to Duke once told me, the worst thing is to be borne a rural white male who is poor in America. There are no groups lobbying for education or internet hi fi blazing speeds for you. Socially you are expected to walk and thrive alone.
The Southern Baptist Church has managed to infiltrate and influence young minds there- the average conservative American seemed better off and happier in his moderated social behaviour. But the Church exacts a 10 % tithe, and it is efficient in stretching every dollar and every cent of church donations. Government works with the best intentions, but spending someone else’s money (your tax money money by a bureaucrat) is always more inefficient than the actual owner spending it alone. Taxes are higher than the 10 % tithe and seem to accomplish much less social change. You would rather go to work or go to war?
Accordingly I find that on the West Coast there are very few tech savvy leaders with a track record of both fiscal pragmatism, educational reform and job creation. Certainly the industry lobbyist is smarter at evading taxes than the average Joe, and campaign financing is still dependent on deep pockets despite the innovations of internet retail fund raising.
Would you like your Senator to be as considerate of creating jobs as entrepreneurs are. Jim Goodnight here is a metaphor for all entrepreneurs who dont believe in reckless hire-fire,outsourcing and long term views on people.
Click here to spread this cause- perhaps it will make existing politicians more efficient just by the threat of new competition.
Some of the most important technology programs that keep Washington accountable are in danger of being eliminated. Data.gov, USASpending.gov, the IT Dashboard and other federal data transparency and government accountability programs are facing a massive budget cut, despite only being a tiny fraction of the national budget. Help save the data and make sure that Congress doesn’t leave the American people in the dark.
I wonder why the federal government/ non profit agencies can help create a SPARQL database, and in days of cloud computing, why a tech major cannot donate storage space to it, after all despite US corporate tax rate being high, US technological companies do end up paying a lower rate thanks to tax breaks/routing overseas revenue.
In the new age data is power, and the US has led in its mission to use technology to further its own values even especially in Middle East. The datasets should be made public and transitioned to the private sector/academia for research and re designing for data augmentation with out straining the massive deficit /borrowing/ fighting 3 wars. Of particular interest would be datasets of campaign finances and donors especially given large number of retail/small donors/internet marketing in elections as it will also help serve as an example of democracy and change. Even countries like China can create a corruption/expense efficiency tracking internal dashboard with restricted rights to help with rural and urban governance.
I kind of liked the latest browser on the block: Rockmelt.
It is based on Chromium open source project, that is primarily lead by Google. In case Facebook wants to buy a browser it can use Rockmelt–provided the mutual powers and angels agree.
I really liked the idea of a social layer- though I am not sure how the analytics embedded within a browser/report should be used.
Basically it re-designs the interface to put your social networks to the margin, thus quite a boon in you have active social media presence on multiple sites or a power reader/surfer. Timely alerts ping you to status/new messages without cluttering your screen and internet experience. Worth atleast a try or first look for the innovator kind of internet customer.
I still prefer the speed of Chrome– because Rockwell interface is still not easy to transition to – it almost adds in 3 dimensions in terms of where your eyeball should be while surfing (to left/right/margin).
and thats despite the funny fine print in Chrome’s user agreement of “continuing innovation”
4.3 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. You may stop using the Services at any time. You do not need to specifically inform Google when you stop using the Services.
Google is looking for the brightest, best young scientists from around the world to submit interesting, creative projects that are relevant to the world today
Curiosity driven science
Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:42:00 -0700 Editor’s note: We’ve invited guest blogger Rolf Heuer, Director General of CERN, the European Centre for Particle Physics – and one of the Google Science Fair finalist judges – to talk about how his passion for Science developed. To learn more about CERN’s big experiments check out our interview with physicist Tara Shears.
DECISION STATS 