Automated Attribute Extraction from Legal Proceedings

The escalating number of pending cases is a growing concern world-wide. Recent advancements in digitization have opened up possibilities for leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the processing of legal documents. Adopting a structured representation for legal documents, as opposed to a mere bag-of-words flat text representation, can significantly enhance processing capabilities. With the aim of achieving this objective, we put forward a set of diverse attributes for criminal case proceedings. We use a state-of-the-art sequence labeling framework to automatically extract attributes from the legal documents. Moreover, we demonstrate the efficacy of the extracted attributes in a downstream task, namely legal judgment prediction.Comment: Presented in Mining and Learning in the Legal Domain (MLLD) workshop 202

Analysis of Prophet Inequalities for Subadditive Combinatorial Auctions

In this paper, we attempt to effectively design a posted price mechanism that achieves an O(1) prophet inequality for general subadditive valuations. Precisely, we consider static, anonymous, and item prices which yields a very simple sequential auction model with a price menu. We present current state of the art mechanisms in [PDTKL17] (balanced pricing) and [KL20] which provide an O(log m) and an O(log log m) prophet inequality respectively. Regarding improving their current guarantees to o(log m) and o(log log m) respectively, we show impossibility results. Moreover, in this paper, we consider a relaxation coined as bundled pricing where we no longer enforce item pricing in hopes of a better approximation guarantee. One such example of bundled prices was seen in Combinatorial Walrasian Equilibria from [FGL13] which achieve a 2-approximation in complete information. Unfortunately, this result does not extend to the Bayesian setting as we show by proving that the above bundled pricing rule is not balanced. Next, we consider the existence of balanced bundled prices that achieve constant factor approximations. In fact, we prove impossibility results regarding guarantees of the form o(log m) when m ≤ n using a reduction technique to balanced item prices. For the other case, we show existence of appropriate balanced bundled prices for general m and n = 1. We conclude with a conjecture regarding the relationship between the number of agents and the complexity of the valuation class for which there exist appropriate balanced bundled prices

Measuring and Comparing the Consistency of IR Models for Query Pairs with Similar and Different Information Needs

A widespread use of supervised ranking models has necessitated an investigation on how consistent their outputs align with user expectations. While a match between the user expectations and system outputs can be sought at different levels of granularity, we study this alignment for search intent transformation across a pair of queries. Specifically, we propose a consistency metric, which for a given pair of queries - one reformulated from the other with at least one term in common, measures if the change in the set of the top-retrieved documents induced by this reformulation is as per a user's expectation. Our experiments led to a number of observations, such as DRMM (an early interaction based IR model) exhibits better alignment with set-level user expectations, whereas transformer-based neural models (e.g., MonoBERT) agree more consistently with the content and rank-based expectations of overlap

Comparison between Cold Steel Method and Bipolar Diathermy Method of Tonsillectomy

Introduction It is generally accepted that the ideal method of tonsillectomy should have less operative time, blood loss, post-operative haemorrhage and morbidity.1 Objective: To compare post-operative pain, intra-operative blood loss and duration of surgery between cold dissection and bipolar diathermy dissection method of Tonsillectomy. Materials and Methods This study was a prospective and comparative hospital-based study. It was conducted from January 2021 - June 2022 at the Department of ENT of a tertiary referral hospital, Kolkata. 90 patients were included in this study fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results In bipolar diathermy method, the mean total blood loss (in ml) (mean±s.d.) of patients was 15.0778±4.6011 and in cold steel method it was 33.0000±5.8737. Post-operative pain for cold dissection on day 1, day 3 and day 10 was [4.4889±.6613], [2.0222±.7830] and [.3778±.4903] respectively. Post-operative pain for bipolar diathermy on day 1, day 3 and day 10 was [4.9556±.2084], [2.5778±1.0111] and [1.6222±.7474] respectively. Duration (in minutes) for bipolar diathermy dissection was [15.2889±1.9612] and for cold dissection it was [24.0444±2.3351].  Conclusion The blood loss and duration were less in bipolar diathermy method but post-operative pain was more as compared to cold steel method. Keywords Tonsillectomy, cold steel, bipolar diathermy, post-operative pain

Unveiling HPV's hidden link: Cardiovascular diseases and the viral intrigue

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain a major global health challenge, with an escalating impact on mortality despite advancements in managing conventional risk factors. This review investigates the intricate relationship between human papillomavirus (HPV) and CVD, shedding light on a novel aspect of cardiovascular health. Despite significant progress in understanding and managing traditional CVD risk factors, a substantial proportion of CVD cases lack these conventional markers. Recent research has unveiled HPV, a prevalent sexually transmitted infection, as a potential unconventional risk factor for CVD.This review delves into the underlying mechanisms linking HPV to CVD pathogenesis. HPV's influence on vascular endothelium and induction of systemic inflammation are key contributors. Additionally, HPV disrupts host lipid metabolism, further exacerbating the development of atherosclerosis. The link between HPV and CAD is not merely correlative; it encompasses a complex interplay of virological, immunological, and metabolic factors. Understanding the connection between HPV and CVD holds transformative potential. Insights from this review not only underscore the significance of considering HPV as a crucial risk factor but also advocate for targeted HPV screening and vaccination strategies to mitigate CVD risks. This multidisciplinary exploration bridges the gap between infectious diseases and cardiovascular health, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive approach to combating the global burden of cardiovascular disease. Further research and clinical guidelines in this realm are essential to harness the full scope of preventive and therapeutic interventions, ultimately shaping a healthier cardiovascular landscape

CAR-T-Cell Therapy in Multiple Myeloma: B-Cell Maturation Antigen (BCMA) and Beyond.

Peer reviewed: TrueAcknowledgements: The authors are grateful to the platform—Biorender for creating descriptive figures.Publication status: PublishedSignificant progress has been achieved in the realm of therapeutic interventions for multiple myeloma (MM), leading to transformative shifts in its clinical management. While conventional modalities such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy have improved the clinical outcomes, the overarching challenge of effecting a comprehensive cure for patients afflicted with relapsed and refractory MM (RRMM) endures. Notably, adoptive cellular therapy, especially chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy, has exhibited efficacy in patients with refractory or resistant B-cell malignancies and is now also being tested in patients with MM. Within this context, the B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) has emerged as a promising candidate for CAR-T-cell antigen targeting in MM. Alternative targets include SLAMF7, CD38, CD19, the signaling lymphocyte activation molecule CS1, NKG2D, and CD138. Numerous clinical studies have demonstrated the clinical efficacy of these CAR-T-cell therapies, although longitudinal follow-up reveals some degree of antigenic escape. The widespread implementation of CAR-T-cell therapy is encumbered by several barriers, including antigenic evasion, uneven intratumoral infiltration in solid cancers, cytokine release syndrome, neurotoxicity, logistical implementation, and financial burden. This article provides an overview of CAR-T-cell therapy in MM and the utilization of BCMA as the target antigen, as well as an overview of other potential target moieties

CAR-T-Cell Therapy in Multiple Myeloma: B-Cell Maturation Antigen (BCMA) and Beyond

Significant progress has been achieved in the realm of therapeutic interventions for multiple myeloma (MM), leading to transformative shifts in its clinical management. While conventional modalities such as surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy have improved the clinical outcomes, the overarching challenge of effecting a comprehensive cure for patients afflicted with relapsed and refractory MM (RRMM) endures. Notably, adoptive cellular therapy, especially chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy, has exhibited efficacy in patients with refractory or resistant B-cell malignancies and is now also being tested in patients with MM. Within this context, the B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) has emerged as a promising candidate for CAR-T-cell antigen targeting in MM. Alternative targets include SLAMF7, CD38, CD19, the signaling lymphocyte activation molecule CS1, NKG2D, and CD138. Numerous clinical studies have demonstrated the clinical efficacy of these CAR-T-cell therapies, although longitudinal follow-up reveals some degree of antigenic escape. The widespread implementation of CAR-T-cell therapy is encumbered by several barriers, including antigenic evasion, uneven intratumoral infiltration in solid cancers, cytokine release syndrome, neurotoxicity, logistical implementation, and financial burden. This article provides an overview of CAR-T-cell therapy in MM and the utilization of BCMA as the target antigen, as well as an overview of other potential target moieties