Improving out-of-domain sentiment polarity classification using argumentation

© 2015 IEEE.Domain dependence is an issue that most researchers in corpus-based computational linguistics have faced at one time or another. With this paper we describe a method to perform sentiment polarity classification across domains that utilises Argumentation. We train standard supervised classifiers on a corpus and then attempt to classify instances from a separate corpus, whose contents are concerned with different domains (e.g. sentences from film reviews vs. Tweets). As expected the classifiers perform poorly and we improve upon the use of a simple classifier for out-of-domain classification by taking class labels suggested by classifiers and arguing about their validity. Whenever we can find enough arguments suggesting a mistake has been made by the classifier we change the class label according to what the arguments tell us. By arguing about class labels we are able to improve F1 measures by as much as 14 points, with an average improvement of F1 = 7.33 across all experiments

Validation of key relationships in an extended service-profit chain model in the South Africa retail industry context.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate an extended conceptual model depicting hypothesised relationships between employee climate, customer value and financial performance. Questionnaires assessing employee experienced climate and customer-experienced value were completed by all the employees (more than 1200) and more than 2000 customers of a single retail company operating almost 100 stores in Southern Africa. The major findings were that some of the components of employee-experienced climate are positively related to customer experienced value in terms of both product and relationship quality. There was no significant relationship between customer-experienced value and the financial performance of the organisation

Evaluating the effectiveness of a cross-disciplinary genre-focused writing intervention

In tertiary education settings it is imperative for students to move confidently between the academic discourses of a variety of disciplines. Thus, it is merited to aim writing interventions at genres that straddle disciplinary boundaries. Following a survey on preferred genres and text types at the University of Pretoria an essay-writing intervention for second-year undergraduate students was designed and developed. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated using a pretest-posttest design. On average the scores of the respondents improved by 7%. The largest improvement was on structure and development (15%), followed by the use of source materials (10%) and academic writing style (7%). An interpretation of the findings, combined with feedback from the respondents, suggested that extensive writing should be introduced soon after the commencement of an essay-writing intervention, and that a series of shorter teaching and learning cycles might be more effective than a single cycle. Furthermore, study units dealing with making and supporting claims might focus more strongly on learning from models than on explicit teaching of a variety of disciplinary conventions and preferences.Keywords: academic essay; academic writing, applied linguistics; cross-disciplinary; genre approach; language teachin

The relationship between personality type and leadership focus.

Optimising focus is a key success driver for many organisation leaders. The relationship between personality type and leadership focus is examined. Personality type is assessed with Form M of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator instrument, and leadership focus is explored through the development and application of a Leadership Focus Questionnaire. South African executives form the target population for this study. Both functionalist and interpretive approaches are applied. Three primary theoretical hypotheses about leadership focus, concerning (1) optimising the balance of focus between external and internal priorities, (2) the fit between the leadership personality type and the organisation type, and (3) the capacity to manage a multiple focus, are considered. Results show that Extraverted personality types are more comfortable with the challenges of focus in the leadership role than are Introverted types, and Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging types experience a greater degree of fit with their organisations than do Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceiving types

Medical Malpractice and Compensation in South Africa

This article gives an overview of current medical malpractice law in South Africa. The following aspects are covered: The overall scheme for preventing and redressing medical errors and adverse events, including regulation, criminal and civil liability, and social and private insurance, and the relationships among these various systems; the details of the applicable liability and compensation systems, including criteria defining qualification for compensation, causation and loss of chance, liability for failure to obtain informed consent, as well as matters of proof and gathering of evidence. The authors note the difficulty they had in obtaining empirical data on medical errors and adverse events. Finally, certain attitudes and concerns about the liability and compensation systems are highlighted

Medical Malpractice and Compensation in South Africa

This article gives an overview of current medical malpractice law in South Africa. The following aspects are covered: The overall scheme for preventing and redressing medical errors and adverse events, including regulation, criminal and civil liability, and social and private insurance, and the relationships among these various systems; the details of the applicable liability and compensation systems, including criteria defining qualification for compensation, causation and loss of chance, liability for failure to obtain informed consent, as well as matters of proof and gathering of evidence. The authors note the difficulty they had in obtaining empirical data on medical errors and adverse events. Finally, certain attitudes and concerns about the liability and compensation systems are highlighted

Shifting distributions and speciation: species divergence during rapid climate change

Questions about how shifting distributions contribute to species diversification remain virtually without answer, even though rapid climate change during the Pleistocene clearly impacted genetic variation within many species. One factor that has prevented this question from being adequately addressed is the lack of precision associated with estimates of species divergence made from a single genetic locus and without incorporating processes that are biologically important as populations diverge. Analysis of DNA sequences from multiple variable loci in a coalescent framework that (i) corrects for gene divergence pre-dating speciation, and (ii) derives divergence-time estimates without making a priori assumptions about the processes underlying patterns of incomplete lineage sorting between species (i.e. allows for the possibility of gene flow during speciation), is critical to overcoming the inherent logistical and analytical difficulties of inferring the timing and mode of speciation during the dynamic Pleistocene. Estimates of species divergence that ignore these processes, use single locus data, or do both can dramatically overestimate species divergence. For example, using a coalescent approach with data from six loci, the divergence between two species of montane Melanoplus grasshoppers is estimated at between 200 000 and 300 000 years before present, far more recently than divergence estimates made using single-locus data or without the incorporation of population-level processes. Melanoplus grasshoppers radiated in the sky islands of the Rocky Mountains, and the analysis of divergence between these species suggests that the isolation of populations in multiple glacial refugia was an important factor in promoting speciation. Furthermore, the low estimates of gene flow between the species indicate that reproductive isolation must have evolved rapidly for the incipient species boundaries to be maintained through the subsequent glacial periods and shifts in species distributions.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75592/1/j.1365-294X.2006.03167.x.pd

Navigating the unknown: model selection in phylogeography

Despite the widespread use and obvious strengths of model-based methods for phylogeographic study, a persistent concern for such analyses is related to the definition of the model itself. The study by Peter et al. (2010) in this issue of Molecular Ecology demonstrates an approach for overcoming such hurdles. The authors were motivated by a deceptively simple goal; they sought to infer whether a population has remained at a low and stable size or has undergone a decline, and certainly there is no shortage of software packages for such a task (e.g., see list of programs in Excoffier & Heckel 2006 ). However, each of these software packages makes basic assumptions about the underling population (e.g., is the population subdivided or panmictic); these assumptions are explicit to any model-based approach but can bias parameter estimates and produce misleading inferences if the model does not approximate the actual demographic history in a reasonable manner. Rather than guessing which model might be best for analyzing the data (microsatellite data from samples of chimpanzees), Peter et al. (2010) quantify the relative fit of competing models for estimating the population genetic parameters of interest. Complemented by a revealing simulation study, the authors highlight the peril inherent to model-based inferences that lack a statistical evaluation of the fit of a model to the data, while also demonstrating an approach for model selection with broad applicability to phylogeographic analysis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79081/1/j.1365-294X.2010.04851.x.pd

Accounts of the Commissioners of the Continental Congress

The material being examined in this paper consists of certain accounting records: the Household accounts of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams at Passy, for the period from 9 April to 24 August 1778, in English, and the accounts of the Commissioners (Franklin, Adams, and Lee) with the Swiss banker Ferdinand Grand of Paris, from 30 March to 12 November 1778, in French, along with some of the letters written by and received by John Adams during this same period. These documents are now available to scholars in the recently published Papers of John Adams. It should be noted that larger sums relating to personal expenditures were often paid through the banker Grand rather than from the household accounts, which were used for general living expenses, smaller personal expenditures, and as a sort of petty cash fund for official business

INTEGRATING COALESCENT AND ECOLOGICAL NICHE MODELING IN COMPARATIVE PHYLOGEOGRAPHY

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73659/1/Appendix+S1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73659/2/j.1558-5646.2007.00117.x.pd