1,357 research outputs found
A Formal Framework for Linguistic Annotation
`Linguistic annotation' covers any descriptive or analytic notations applied
to raw language data. The basic data may be in the form of time functions --
audio, video and/or physiological recordings -- or it may be textual. The added
notations may include transcriptions of all sorts (from phonetic features to
discourse structures), part-of-speech and sense tagging, syntactic analysis,
`named entity' identification, co-reference annotation, and so on. While there
are several ongoing efforts to provide formats and tools for such annotations
and to publish annotated linguistic databases, the lack of widely accepted
standards is becoming a critical problem. Proposed standards, to the extent
they exist, have focussed on file formats. This paper focuses instead on the
logical structure of linguistic annotations. We survey a wide variety of
existing annotation formats and demonstrate a common conceptual core, the
annotation graph. This provides a formal framework for constructing,
maintaining and searching linguistic annotations, while remaining consistent
with many alternative data structures and file formats.Comment: 49 page
Annotation graphs as a framework for multidimensional linguistic data analysis
In recent work we have presented a formal framework for linguistic annotation
based on labeled acyclic digraphs. These `annotation graphs' offer a simple yet
powerful method for representing complex annotation structures incorporating
hierarchy and overlap. Here, we motivate and illustrate our approach using
discourse-level annotations of text and speech data drawn from the CALLHOME,
COCONUT, MUC-7, DAMSL and TRAINS annotation schemes. With the help of domain
specialists, we have constructed a hybrid multi-level annotation for a fragment
of the Boston University Radio Speech Corpus which includes the following
levels: segment, word, breath, ToBI, Tilt, Treebank, coreference and named
entity. We show how annotation graphs can represent hybrid multi-level
structures which derive from a diverse set of file formats. We also show how
the approach facilitates substantive comparison of multiple annotations of a
single signal based on different theoretical models. The discussion shows how
annotation graphs open the door to wide-ranging integration of tools, formats
and corpora.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Towards Standards and Tools for Discourse
Tagging, Proceedings of the Workshop. pp. 1-10. Association for Computational
Linguistic
What is the effect of block scheduling on academic achievement? : A systematic review. Technical report
Integrating detectors and their application to infrared astronomy
The work contained in this thesis is concerned with the performance of infrared integrating detector arrays, within the context of astronomical spectroscopy.A linear array of thirty-two InSb photo diodes is investigated. It is found to exhibit good capacitance and dark current uniformity across the array. By applying the principle of charge conservation to the multiplexed readout arrangement of this device, the signal response of the detector to different levels of illumination is derived. It is found from this, and confirmed experimentally, that the device has a highly linear radiation response over a range of reverse biases.The interaction between dark current and photo-current is studied,primarily by the application of a simple model. The results indicate that the effective signal gain of a detector can vary in the situation where dark current dominates the discharge processes, since in this instance accurate dark current subtraction becomes difficult.The predictions of the model are compared with experiments performed on two integrating arrays; one under study in the laboratory,and the other installed in the low background environment of a cooled grating spectrometer. Finally, suggestions are presented of ways of avoiding this problem, the simplest of which involves utilizing, where possible, low dark current detector materials.The importance of achieving good dark current uniformity with arrays is stressed, since this will improve the ability to flat-field faint object spectra.To illustrate the importance of these devices, infrared spectra obtained with array detectors, covering a range of astronomical objects,are presented and discussed
Improving Veteran access to heart failure specialty care: a change model project
Background: Many Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities have cardiac services, but not all VHA centers offer heart failure care. Viable alternative models exist to traditional outpatient treatment by physicians, such as Tele-medicine consultations, the use of nurse practitioner run clinics, and the use of models such as Specialty Care Access Network-Extension for Community (SCAN-ECHO) and site specific contracted physician services models. These have the potential to improve Veteran access to care. Objective: The purpose of this change project was to conduct a needs assessment survey, in joint effort with the Hershey Medical Center Heart and Vascular Institute, to identify barriers and improve service and communication for veterans receiving heart failure care via a contracted provider services model of the Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Methods: A two round modified Delphi process was implemented to identify the major issues that present barriers to specialty care for veterans and their providers. The questionnaire was sent to physicians and nurse practitioners. Surveys included analogous questions for all parties in order to compare and contrast responses and see how they differed. Results: The majority of respondents agreed that timeliness of procedures is questionable secondary to the VHA dictating where those procedures are to be done, i.e. cardiac catheterizations, or electrophysiology studies in Philadelphia. The VHA clinic has less support staff and longer wait times, often resulting in decreased Veteran access to care. The inability to access electronic medical records outside of the VHA institution (remote access) can often lead to further delays in care to Veterans. Reliable remote access to the Veterans Administration electronic medical record would improve the treatment experience for Veterans. The respondents also agreed that a nurse practitioner on site at the VHA to coordinate care and provide follow-up and liaison service would be beneficial. Conclusions: There is a communication gap that exists for providers when seeing patients at the VHA. The addition of a Nurse Practitioner on-site could help to close communication gaps, provide follow up and maintain a consistent presence for the Veterans receiving heart failure care via a contracted provider model. Quality Improvement, Delphi Technique, Veterans, Heart failure, Health Services Accessibilit
ATLAS: A flexible and extensible architecture for linguistic annotation
We describe a formal model for annotating linguistic artifacts, from which we
derive an application programming interface (API) to a suite of tools for
manipulating these annotations. The abstract logical model provides for a range
of storage formats and promotes the reuse of tools that interact through this
API. We focus first on ``Annotation Graphs,'' a graph model for annotations on
linear signals (such as text and speech) indexed by intervals, for which
efficient database storage and querying techniques are applicable. We note how
a wide range of existing annotated corpora can be mapped to this annotation
graph model. This model is then generalized to encompass a wider variety of
linguistic ``signals,'' including both naturally occuring phenomena (as
recorded in images, video, multi-modal interactions, etc.), as well as the
derived resources that are increasingly important to the engineering of natural
language processing systems (such as word lists, dictionaries, aligned
bilingual corpora, etc.). We conclude with a review of the current efforts
towards implementing key pieces of this architecture.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure
Isotopic provenancing of Pb in Mitrovica, northern Kosovo: source identification of chronic Pb enrichment in soils, house dust and scalp hair
Mitrovica, northern Kosovo, is the site of some of the highest Pb concentrations reported in human populations; exemplified by Pb concentrations in scalp hair of up to 130 ĆĀ¼g g-1 and widely-publicized of Pb-related ill-health and mortality amongst internally displaced populations. High human Pb burdens are accompanied by elevated concentrations of potentially harmful elements (PHEs) in soils and house dust within the city, which has a long history of mining and metallurgy. In this study enrichment-levels for PHEs in soils are quantified and compared to environmental quality guidelines and a statistically-derived estimation of background concentration. In addition, Pb isotopes (207Pb/206Pb, 208Pb/206Pb) are used to characterise the isotopic signatures of potential point sources of Pb and a mixing model employed to quantify the contribution of sources to Pb present in soils, house dust, and the scalp hair of children and young people. Pb isotopic evidence suggests that Pb in surface soils and house-dust is predominantly sourced from historical deposition of Pb-containing aerosols from metal smelting, with lower contributions from wind-blown dispersal of metalliferous waste. Pb present in scalp hair is interpreted as the result of non-occupational exposure and the ingestion and/or inhalation of Pb-enriched surface soil and house dust. This study represents one of the very few instances where this type of geochemical tracing technique has been successfully applied to definitively identify the source of Pb present within biological samples. The results of this study are of particular relevance to environmental management and highlight the human health risk posed by the legacy of now inactive mining and metallurgy in addition to the challenge posed in mitigating the risk posed by diffuse soil pollution. ĆĀ© 2015 Elsevier Ltd
Taxation Of Mandatory Restitution Received By Victims Of Human Trafficking
In Notice 2012-12, the Internal Revenue Service announced that awards of mandatory restitution received by victims of human trafficking under 18 U.S.C. 1593 of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 are excluded from gross income. This article examines the basic provisions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the calculation of mandatory restitution, publicly available resources involving human trafficking, and the taxability of damages involving physical versus nonphysical injury under civil law
Bayesian Inference of Synaptic Quantal Parameters from Correlated Vesicle Release
Synaptic transmission is both history-dependent and stochastic, resulting in varying responses to presentations of the same presynaptic stimulus. This complicates attempts to infer synaptic parameters and has led to the proposal of a number of different strategies for their quantification. Recently Bayesian approaches have been applied to make more efficient use of the data collected in paired intracellular recordings. Methods have been developed that either provide a complete model of the distribution of amplitudes for isolated responses or approximate the amplitude distributions of a train of post-synaptic potentials, with correct short-term synaptic dynamics but neglecting correlations. In both cases the methods provided significantly improved inference of model parameters as compared to existing mean-variance fitting approaches. However, for synapses with high release probability, low vesicle number or relatively low restock rate and for data in which only one or few repeats of the same pattern are available, correlations between serial events can allow for the extraction of significantly more information from experiment: a more complete Bayesian approach would take this into account also. This has not been possible previously because of the technical difficulty in calculating the likelihood of amplitudes seen in correlated post-synaptic potential trains; however, recent theoretical advances have now rendered the likelihood calculation tractable for a broad class of synaptic dynamics models. Here we present a compact mathematical form for the likelihood in terms of a matrix product and demonstrate how marginals of the posterior provide information on covariance of parameter distributions. The associated computer code for Bayesian parameter inference for a variety of models of synaptic dynamics is provided in the supplementary material allowing for quantal and dynamical parameters to be readily inferred from experimental data sets
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