A Study of Realtime Summarization Metrics

Unexpected news events, such as natural disasters or other human tragedies, create a large volume of dynamic text data from official news media as well as less formal social media. Automatic real-time text summarization has become an important tool for quickly transforming this overabundance of text into clear, useful information for end-users including affected individuals, crisis responders, and interested third parties. Despite the importance of real-time summarization systems, their evaluation is not well understood as classic methods for text summarization are inappropriate for real-time and streaming conditions. The TREC 2013-2015 Temporal Summarization (TREC-TS) track was one of the first evaluation campaigns to tackle the challenges of real-time summarization evaluation, introducing new metrics, ground-truth generation methodology and dataset. In this paper, we present a study of TREC-TS track evaluation methodology, with the aim of documenting its design, analyzing its effectiveness, as well as identifying improvements and best practices for the evaluation of temporal summarization systems

Redesigning experimental equipment for determining peak pressure in a simulated tank car transfer line

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 21).When liquids are transported from storage tanks to tank cars, improper order of valve openings can cause pressure surges in the transfer line. To model this phenomenon and predict the peak pressures in such a transfer line, a laboratory setup consisting of a pressurized water storage tank connected to different segments of pipe by ball valves was constructed. By varying parameters including water height within the tank, transfer line length, and applied driving pressure, the most critical variable was determined to be driving pressure. The hydrostatic pressure from the difference in water height was negligible and this fact was evident without the need for experimental verification. This setup therefore allowed for even fewer parameters to be tested. Due to the poor condition of the experiment because of age and corrosion along with the few insights the setup provided, the experiment needed to be updated. The newer version is designed to allow students to have more choice in what parameters they wish to test, with pipe segments of different length as well as different diameter with various impedances. To address spatial and practical considerations, the new design was assembled in PVC piping. This mockup proved useful in discovering inadequacies in the design that had not been considered.(cont.) While the mockup proved that the design was safe to use at the operating pressures within the 2.672 laboratory for which the experiment is intended, it also proved that there were important factors influencing the aesthetics of the experiment that had been considered secondary to the safety. To add complexity to the problem, the design included clear segments of pipe near the ends in which the water hammer would oscillate so that digital imaging analysis could later be implemented. However, the increase in pipe length to hide the pressure tank below the table also caused the air pressure required to drive the oscillations in the clear section of pipe to be much higher than operating pressure. As this build was considered as a mockup, these problems have been noted so future designs for the final experiment to be used in the 2.672 classroom can address these problems.by Richard A. Diaz.S.B

technospheric mining of mine wastes

The concept of mining or extracting valuable metals and minerals from technospheric stocks is referred to as technospheric mining. As potential secondary sources of valuable materials, mining these technospheric stocks can offer solutions to minimise the waste for final disposal and augment metals’ or minerals’ supply, and to abate environmental legacies brought by minerals’ extraction. Indeed, waste streams produced by the mining and mineral processing industry can cause long-term negative environmental legacies if not managed properly. There are thus strong incentives/drivers for the mining industry to recover and repurpose mine and mineral wastes since they contain valuable metals and materials that can generate different applications and new products. In this paper, technospheric mining of mine wastes and its application are reviewed, and the challenges that technospheric mining is facing as a newly suggested concept are presented. Unification of standards and policies on mine wastes and tailings as part of governance, along with the importance of research and development, data management, and effective communication between the industry and academia, are identified as necessary to progress technospheric mining to the next level. This review attempts to link technospheric mining to the promotion of environmental sustainability practices in the mining industry by incorporating green technology, sustainable chemistry, and eco-efficiency. We argue that developing environmentally friendly processes and green technology can ensure positive legacies from the mining industry. By presenting specific examples of the mine wastes, we show how the valuable metals or minerals they contain can be recovered using various metallurgical and mineral processing techniques to close the loop on waste in favour of a circular economy

Retrieving Multi-Entity Associations: An Evaluation of Combination Modes for Word Embeddings

Word embeddings have gained significant attention as learnable representations of semantic relations between words, and have been shown to improve upon the results of traditional word representations. However, little effort has been devoted to using embeddings for the retrieval of entity associations beyond pairwise relations. In this paper, we use popular embedding methods to train vector representations of an entity-annotated news corpus, and evaluate their performance for the task of predicting entity participation in news events versus a traditional word cooccurrence network as a baseline. To support queries for events with multiple participating entities, we test a number of combination modes for the embedding vectors. While we find that even the best combination modes for word embeddings do not quite reach the performance of the full cooccurrence network, especially for rare entities, we observe that different embedding methods model different types of relations, thereby indicating the potential for ensemble methods.Comment: 4 pages; Accepted at SIGIR'1

Nonfixed Retirement Age for University Professors: Modeling Its Effects on New Faculty Hires

We model the set of tenure-track faculty members at a university as a queue, where “customers” in queue are faculty members in active careers. Arrivals to the queue are usually young, untenured assistant professors, and departures from the queue are primarily those who do not pass a promotion or tenure hurdle and those who retire. There are other less-often-used ways to enter and leave the queue. Our focus is on system effects of the elimination of mandatory retirement age. In particular, we are concerned with estimating the number of assistant professor slots that annually are no longer available because of the elimination of mandatory retirement. We start with steady-state assumptions that require use of Little's Law of Queueing, and we progress to a transient model using system dynamics. We apply these simple models using available data from our home university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.United States. National Institutes of Health (5U01GM094141-02

Manual para la construcción e instalación de tanques de doble pared para almacenamiento de combustible en estaciones de servicio

Esta tesis de grado ha sido desarrollada para dar una solución técnica y económica en el procedimiento de la construcción e instalación de tanques enterrados para almacenamiento de combustible en Estaciones de Servicio Automotrices; procedimientos basados en normas aplicadas dentro de este campo y lo contendrá como manual practico. En el país no existe una normativa específica para procedimiento en construcción, por lo que se ha visto la necesidad de crear un manual que cuente con la información técnica suficiente, logrando con esto tener Estaciones de Servicio seguras sin afectar la integridad de los que laboran en la misma y la comunidad que los rodea. En la actualidad empresas y multinacionales dedicadas a la venta de este tipo de tanques, suministran estos tanques importados, sin embargo la capacidad de pago de los demandantes es bajo, por lo que a través de este documento se promociona la construcción interna en el país, dejando establecido una normativa a partir de las NFPA 30 y 30 A. MANUAL FOR THE CONSTRUCTION AND INSTALLATION OF TANKS OF DOUBLE WALL FOR STORAGE OF FUEL IN STATIONS OF SERVICE This degree thesis has been developed to give a technical and economic solution in the procedure of the construction and installation of tanks buried for storage of fuel in Self-driven Stations of Service; procedures based on norms applied in this field and it will contain it as manual practice. In the country a specific norm doesn't exist for procedure in construction, giving the necessity to have a manual that has the enough technical information, achieving with this sure Stations of Service without affecting of those that work in the stations. At the present time companies and multinationals dedicated for sale of this type of tanks, give these cared tanks, however the capacity of the plaintiffs' payment is low, and through this document the internal construction is promoted in the country, leaving established a procedure starting from the NFPA 30 and 30

Anesthesia Provider Education to Increase the Use of Apneic Oxygenation in the Difficult Airway Patient

Background: Apneic Oxygenation (AO) is proven to limit the occurrence of hypoxemic episodes in difficult airway patients. However, this approach to care is often overlooked when providing care for these patients. Objective: The objective of this quality improvement project was to increase provider knowledge of AO and its use in managing the difficult away patient. Methods: A quasi-experimental study examining the knowledge of providers regarding the use of AO was conducted. Provider knowledge of AO was assessed before and following an educational intervention to increase knowledge. Comparisons of baseline and post-education knowledge were conducted and the implications of the findings are discussed. Results: In total, five certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) were enrolled in the project. Although the sample was too small to inferentially compare pre- and post-intervention results, the data indicated a mean score increase from 65% on the pre-test to 100% in the post-test, suggesting that knowledge scores for providers did increase following the educational program. Conclusion: The results do indicate that in CRNAs working at the practice site, knowledge of OA increased following education. When paired with the evidence base on this topic, there is strong evidence to support provider education to increase the use of AO in practice

Magnified Effects of Changes in NIH Research Funding Levels

What happens within the university-based research enterprise when a federal funding agency abruptly changes research grant funding levels, up or down? We use simple difference equation models to show that an apparently modest increase or decrease in funding levels can have dramatic effects on researchers, graduate students, postdocs, and the overall research enterprise. The amplified effect is due to grants lasting for an extended period, thereby requiring the majority of funds available in one year to pay for grants awarded in previous years. We demonstrate the effect in various ways, using National Institutes of Health data for two situations: the historical doubling of research funding from 1998 to 2003 and the possible effects of “sequestration” in January 2013. We posit human responses to such sharp movements in funding levels and offer suggestions for amelioration.National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U.S.) (Grant 5U01GM094141-02