A Resource for Detecting Misspellings and Denoising Medical Text Data

In this paper we propose a method for collecting a dictionary to deal with noisy medical text documents. The quality of such Italian Emergency Room Reports is so poor that in most cases these can be hardly automatically elaborated; this also holds for other languages (e.g., English), with the notable difference that no Italian dictionary has been proposed to deal with this jargon. In this work we introduce and evaluate a resource designed to fill this gap.In questo lavoro illustriamo un metodo per la costruzione di un dizionario dedicato all’elaborazione di documenti medici, la porzione delle cartelle cliniche annotata nei reparti di pronto soccorso. Questo tipo di documenti è così rumoroso che in genere le cartelle cliniche difficilmente posono essere direttamente elaborate in maniera automatica. Pur essendo il problema di ripulire questo tipo di documenti un problema rilevante e diffuso, non esisteva un dizionario completo per trattare questo linguaggio settoriale. In questo lavoro proponiamo e valutiamo una risorsa finalizzata a condurre questo tipo di elaborazione sulle cartelle cliniche

Genuinely Ferroelectric Sub-1-Volt-Switchable Nanodomains in HfₓZr₍₁₋ₓ₎ O₂ Ultrathin Capacitors

The new class of fully silicon-compatible hafnia-based ferroelectrics with high switchable polarization and good endurance and thickness scalability shows a strong promise for new generations of logic and memory devices. Among other factors, their competitiveness depends on the power efficiency that requires reliable low-voltage operation. Here, we show genuine ferroelectric switching in HfₓZr₍₁₋ₓ₎ O₂ (HZO) layers in the application-relevant capacitor geometry, for driving signals as low as 800 mV and coercive voltage below 500 mV. Enhanced piezoresponse force microscopy with sub-picometer sensitivity allowed for probing individual polarization domains under the top electrode and performing a detailed analysis of hysteretic switching. The authentic local piezoelectric loops and domain wall movement under bias attest to the true ferroelectric nature of the detected nanodomains. The systematic analysis of local piezoresponse loop arrays reveals a totally unexpected thickness dependence of the coercive fields in HZO capacitors. The thickness decrease from 10 to 7 nm is associated with a remarkably strong decrease of the coercive field, with about 50% of the capacitor area switched at coercive voltages ≤0.5 V. Our explanation consistent with the experimental data involves a change of mechanism of nuclei-assisted switching when the thickness decreases below 10 nm. The practical implication of this effect is a robust ferroelectric switching under the millivolt-range driving signal, which is not expected for the standard coercive voltage scaling law. These results demonstrate a strong potential for further aggressive thickness reduction of HZO layers for low-power electronics

Conceptual Abstractness: from Nouns to Verbs

Investigating lexical access, representation and processing involves dealing with conceptual abstractness: abstract concepts are known to be more quickly and easily delivered in human communications than abstract meanings (Binder et al., 2005). Although these aspects have long been left unexplored, they are relevant: abstract terms are widespread in ordinary language, as they contribute to the realisation of various sorts of figurative language (metaphors, metonymies, hyperboles, etc.). Abstractness is therefore an issue for computational linguistics, as well. In this paper we illustrate how to characterise verbs with abstractness information. We provide an experimental evaluation of the presented approach on the largest existing corpus annotated with abstraction scores: our results exhibit good correlation with human ratings, and point out some open issues that will be addressed in future work.In questo lavoro presentiamo il tema dell’astrattezza come una caratteristica diffusa del linguaggio, e un nodo cruciale nell’elaborazione automatica del linguaggio. In particolare illustriamo un metodo per la stima dell’astrattezza che caratterizza i verbi a partire dalla composizione dei punteggi di astrattezza degli argomenti dei verbi utilizzando la risorsa Abs-COVER

Position Control of Piezoelectric Actuators by Thick-Film Piezoresistive Elements

Precise control of actuator position can be achieved by using thick-film resistors (TFRs) for piezoresistive position feedback

Interferometric study of piezoelectric degradation in ferroelectric thin films

Degradation of piezoelectric properties has been studied in ferroelectric PZT films by means of optical interferometry. The degradation under de bias and aging of poled films have been observed. The decay of piezoelectric coefficient with time is described by a logarithmic law with aging rates comparable to those of switching polarization. The aging rates are shown to be sensitive to poling conditions and to orientation of the poling field with respect to the direction of preferred polarization. The fatigue measurements revealed a decrease of piezoelectric coefficient with a simultaneous shift of piezoelectric hysteresis loops. Degradation tests on thin membranes covered by PZT films have been reported