Relation Discovery from Web Data for Competency Management

This paper describes a technique for automatically discovering associations between people and expertise from an analysis of very large data sources (including web pages, blogs and emails), using a family of algorithms that perform accurate named-entity recognition, assign different weights to terms according to an analysis of document structure, and access distances between terms in a document. My contribution is to add a social networking approach called BuddyFinder which relies on associations within a large enterprise-wide "buddy list" to help delimit the search space and also to provide a form of 'social triangulation' whereby the system can discover documents from your colleagues that contain pertinent information about you. This work has been influential in the information retrieval community generally, as it is the basis of a landmark system that achieved overall first place in every category in the Enterprise Search Track of TREC2006

Microstructural characterisation of TiAlTiAu and TiAlPdAu ohmic contacts to AlGaN/GaN

Ti/Al/Ti/Au and Ti/Al/Pd/Au contacts to AlGaN/GaN have been investigated to ascertain the effect of annealing temperature on the structural evolution of the contacts. Ti/Al/Ti/Au contacts become ohmic after rapid thermal annealing at 750°C or higher, corresponding to the formation of an interfacial TiN phase, with inclusions penetrating through the AlGaN layer observed after annealing at 950°C. The Pd layer is shown to be more efficient at inhibiting diffusion of Au to the interface than Ti. Ohmic behaviour was not seen with the Ti/Al/Pd/Au scheme. Either the presence of Au at the interface may improve ohmic behaviour, or the Ti:Al ratio is insufficient in this scheme

Epidemiology of bovine ephemeral fever in Australia 1981-1985

Bovine ephemeral fever is an important viral disease of cattle in Australia. The disease occurred each year, principally in summer and autumn, between 1981 and 1985. Queensland and the northern half of New South Wales were areas of greatest activity with only sporadic cases being reported from the Northern Territory and the northern third of Western Australia. Since 1981, the disease has been endemic in an extensive area of eastern Australia and has tended to occur in widely scattered outbreaks rather than the north-south advancing wave form of the epidemics of 1936-37, 1967-68, 1970-71 and 1972-74. The southernmost outbreaks between 1981 and 1985 were well within the limits of these earlier epidemics. The pattern of disease appears to have become seasonally endemic rather than periodically endemic in the northern two-thirds of eastern Australia. Ephemeral fever was not recorded in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia or the southern part of Western Australia between 1981 and 1985. The disease was most frequently reported in cattle under 3 years of age, but also occurred in older cattle

Measuring hadron properties at finite temperature

We estimate the numbers and mass spectra of observed lepton and kaon pairs produced from $\phi$ meson decays in the central rapidity region of an Au+Au collision at lab energy 11.6 GeV/nucleon. The following effects are considered: possible mass shifts, thermal broadening due to collisions with hadronic resonances, and superheating of the resonance gas. Changes in the dilepton mass spectrum may be seen, but changes in the dikaon spectrum are too small to be detectable.Comment: 9 pages (revtex), 3 figures (uuencoded postscript

What are the participants’ perspectives of taking melatonin for the treatment of nocturia in Multiple Sclerosis? -a qualitative study embedded within a double blind RCT

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neurological disorder caused by neurodegeneration within the central nervous system. It results in impaired physical, cognitive and psychological functioning and can also lead to lower urinary tract symptoms including nocturia. While clinical trials have suggested an association between nocturia and melatonin secretion, to our knowledge, no qualitative research has been conducted on the experience of taking melatonin to treat nocturia in progressive MS within a clinical trial. Methods: 17 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted as part of a double-blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover, clinical trial with consenting adults with MS. Interviews explored participants’ experiences of nocturia associated with MS and their experience of taking melatonin as a trial treatment for nocturia versus a placebo. Data was analysed using a thematic analysis. Results: Themes on the experience of nocturia revealed participants’ understandings of nocturia, the impact it had on their night and increased daily fatigue. Themes on the intervention showed perceived improvements to nocturia, sleep and energy and negative effects including lethargy, a lack of significant change and physical side effects including vivid dreams.Conclusion: This qualitative exploration revealed an association between nocturia and increased levels of fatigue during the day by those with MS. However, perspectives towards the effectiveness of melatonin as a potential treatment varied as both placebo and melatonin were perceived as having very similar effects