Knowledge will Propel Machine Understanding of Content: Extrapolating from Current Examples

Machine Learning has been a big success story during the AI resurgence. One particular stand out success relates to learning from a massive amount of data. In spite of early assertions of the unreasonable effectiveness of data, there is increasing recognition for utilizing knowledge whenever it is available or can be created purposefully. In this paper, we discuss the indispensable role of knowledge for deeper understanding of content where (i) large amounts of training data are unavailable, (ii) the objects to be recognized are complex, (e.g., implicit entities and highly subjective content), and (iii) applications need to use complementary or related data in multiple modalities/media. What brings us to the cusp of rapid progress is our ability to (a) create relevant and reliable knowledge and (b) carefully exploit knowledge to enhance ML/NLP techniques. Using diverse examples, we seek to foretell unprecedented progress in our ability for deeper understanding and exploitation of multimodal data and continued incorporation of knowledge in learning techniques.Comment: Pre-print of the paper accepted at 2017 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1610.0770

Neurocognitive Informatics Manifesto.

Informatics studies all aspects of the structure of natural and artificial information systems. Theoretical and abstract approaches to information have made great advances, but human information processing is still unmatched in many areas, including information management, representation and understanding. Neurocognitive informatics is a new, emerging field that should help to improve the matching of artificial and natural systems, and inspire better computational algorithms to solve problems that are still beyond the reach of machines. In this position paper examples of neurocognitive inspirations and promising directions in this area are given

Insights into Analogy Completion from the Biomedical Domain

Analogy completion has been a popular task in recent years for evaluating the semantic properties of word embeddings, but the standard methodology makes a number of assumptions about analogies that do not always hold, either in recent benchmark datasets or when expanding into other domains. Through an analysis of analogies in the biomedical domain, we identify three assumptions: that of a Single Answer for any given analogy, that the pairs involved describe the Same Relationship, and that each pair is Informative with respect to the other. We propose modifying the standard methodology to relax these assumptions by allowing for multiple correct answers, reporting MAP and MRR in addition to accuracy, and using multiple example pairs. We further present BMASS, a novel dataset for evaluating linguistic regularities in biomedical embeddings, and demonstrate that the relationships described in the dataset pose significant semantic challenges to current word embedding methods.Comment: Accepted to BioNLP 2017. (10 pages

Theorising interprofessional pedagogic evaluation: framework for evaluating the impact of interprofessional CPD on practice change

This paper outlines the development of a conceptual framework to guide the evaluation of the impact of the pedagogy employed in continuing professional development for professionals in education, health and social care. The work is developed as part of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning: Interprofessional Learning across the Public Sector (CETL: IPPS) at the University of Southampton. The paper briefly outlines the field for pedagogic research and comments on the underpinning theories that have so far been used to guide research into interprofessional learning (IPL). It maps out the development of interprofessional CPD in its specific context as part of the CETL: IPPS with its links to a local authority undergoing service reorganisation and the role of the continuing professional development (CPD) in effecting change. It then brings together a theoretical framework with the potential toexplore, explain and evaluate the essential features of the model of pedagogy used in interprofessional CPD, in which professionals from education have for the first time been included alongside those from health and social care. The framework draws upon elements of situated learning theory, Activity Theory and Dreier’s work (2002, 1999) on trajectories of participation, particularly Personal Action Potency. By combining the resulting analytic framework with an adapted version of an established evaluation model, a theoretically-driven, practicable evaluation matrix is developed. The matrix has potential use in evaluating the impact of pedagogic input on practice change. The paper models a process for developing a conceptual framework to steer pedagogic evaluation. Such a process and the resulting matrix may be of use to other researchers who are similarly developing pedagogic evaluation

Communication in Hong Kong accident and emergency departments: The clinicians’ perspectives

© The Author(s) 2015. In this article, we report findings from the first qualitatively driven study of patient–clinician communication in Hong Kong Accident and Emergency Departments (AEDs). In light of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority’s policy emphasis on patientcentered care and communication in the public hospitals it oversees, we analyze clinicians’ perceptions of the role and relevance of patient-centered communication strategies in emergency care. Although aware of the importance of effective communication in emergency care, participants discussed how this was frequently jeopardized by chronic understaffing, patient loads, and time pressures. This was raised in relation to the absence of spoken interdisciplinary handovers, the tendency to downgrade interpersonal communication with patients, and the decline in staff attendance at communication training courses. Participants’ frequent descriptions of patient-centered communication as dispensable from, and timeburdensome in, AEDs highlight a discrepancy between the stated Hong Kong Hospital Authority policy of patient-centered care and the reality of contemporary Hong Kong emergency practice

The many shades of bilingualism: language experiences modulate adaptations in brain structure

Recent years have seen an expansion in the research related to structural brain adaptations related to the acquisition and processing of additional languages. However, the accumulating evidence remains to a great extent inconsistent, with a large variety of cortical, subcortical and cerebellar effects reported in various studies. Here we propose that the variability in the data can be explained by the differences in the language background and experiences of the tested samples. We also propose that the field should move away from monolithic bilingual vs. monolingual comparisons; instead, it should focus on the experiences of the bilingual groups as predictors of structural changes in the brain, and also employ longitudinal designs to test the dynamic effects of active bilingualism. The implications of the proposed approaches for the suggested benefits of bilingualism on ageing and patient populations are also discussed

Direct and Indirect Treatment Effects in Multilingual People with Aphasia

Background: Successfully assessing and treating aphasia in multilingual people requires a detailed understanding of the mechanisms underlying language processing in the multilingual population, and the potential impairments to those mechanisms. The balance between spreading activation of language processes via treatment and controlling interference of competing items within the lexico-semantic networks appears to be a key factor in determining whether treatment effects generalise within and across languages in multilingual people with aphasia (Kiran, Sandberg, Gray, Ascenso, & Kester, 2013). This balance can be exploited through treatment, which, if carefully chosen, should maximise potential within- and cross-language generalisation. One treatment that has been shown to consistently result in within-language generalisation, to varying degrees, is Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST), in which thematic role assignment to given verbs is repeatedly trained, thus strengthening semantic verb networks (Edmonds, 2016). Due to the shared semantic network across languages of multilingual people (e.g., Paradis, 1993), VNeST should result in generalisation across languages of multilingual individuals with aphasia, in addition to within-language generalisation, especially when trained verbs share argument structure across languages, and when basic sentence structure is similar across languages. To date, conflicting evidence has been observed in multilingual individuals with aphasia regarding within-language and cross-language generalisation relative to the underlying and competing mechanisms of spreading activation and interference control. Aim: We investigated under which conditions generalisation is likely to occur in multilingual individuals with aphasia, using a treatment with high potential for generalisation (VNeST), in a language pair with overlapping basic word order and mostly overlapping verb argument structure. Furthermore, we investigated whether any treatment gains were maintained after treatment was discontinued. Method: Three multilingual participants with aphasia whose first-acquired language was English, and who all acquired Modern Hebrew in elementary school and reached moderate-high pre-stroke proficiency in adulthood, participated in this study. All participants received VNeST in each of their languages, in consecutive treatment blocks. English and Hebrew abilities were tested before and after each treatment block, and 4-5 weeks after treatment was discontinued, using a large battery of language tests that included comprehension and production tasks for single-words, sentences, oral connected speech and written narratives. Functional communication skills in each language were also assessed via questionnaire. Results: We found that direct treatment effects were measured in both languages, for all participants with moderate-severe aphasia in any given language, but not in mild aphasia. Within-language generalisation was also observed for all participants, but not equally for both languages. Rather, the amount and type of generalisation was qualified by order of acquisition, relative proficiencies, attrition, aphasia type and severity, and motivational factors. Cross-language generalisation was observed in each participant in one direction only, with contradictory patterns across participants. For two participants with pre-stroke high proficiency in both languages, we found support for the strong suppression of interference in the less impaired English during treatment of the more impaired Hebrew, resulting in either no cross-language generalisation to English, or a decrease in post-treatment English language performance, which we attribute to the involvement of damage to the language control network (Ansaldo & Saidi, 2014). Conversely, in the same two participants, cross-language generalisation was observed in the more impaired Hebrew after treatment in the less impaired English, likely due to a weak suppression of interference of the more impaired Hebrew, and therefore a stronger effect of spreading activation from treatment in English (Kiran et al., 2013). We observed the opposite pattern in a participant whose attrited Hebrew had never reached full proficiency pre-stroke, with treatment in his more impaired Hebrew demonstrating cross-language generalisation to his less impaired English. We attribute this to strong spreading activation of an attrited language, both generally through exposure as well as specifically through treatment. Conversely, a decrease in performance in the more impaired Hebrew after treatment in the less impaired English was attribute to rarely using Hebrew in the environment once treatment in English began, together with fluctuating motivation. Treatment gains began to decline for all participants after treatment was discontinued, with the most widespread decline in the least communicative participant, in his rarely-used language (Hebrew). Conclusion: Our study supports the competing mechanisms theory of Kiran et al. (2013), relative to factors such as order of acquisition, damage to the language control network, language of the environment, attrition, and motivational factors. Clinically, we found that VNeST is a valuable treatment option in multilingual participants with aphasia, resulting in direct treatment effects and within-language generalisation, including for a moderately proficient language that had undergone attrition for many years. Notably, we found that when treating a multilingual participant with aphasia in one language only, not only can cross-language generalisation occur or not occur, but treatment in one language can also result in a decrease in performance in the untreated language, especially if (a) the language control network is damaged, and (b) treatment is provided to the more impaired language only. Therefore, carefully monitoring language gains and losses throughout treatment is essential, in order to modify treatment plans as therapy progresses. Finally, it is necessary to consider a low dosage maintenance treatment plan relative to participants’ language and communicative environment, so that treatment gains can be appropriately maintained allowing multilingual patients with aphasia to maximise their potential in each language