Fusing Data with Correlations

Many applications rely on Web data and extraction systems to accomplish knowledge-driven tasks. Web information is not curated, so many sources provide inaccurate, or conflicting information. Moreover, extraction systems introduce additional noise to the data. We wish to automatically distinguish correct data and erroneous data for creating a cleaner set of integrated data. Previous work has shown that a na\"ive voting strategy that trusts data provided by the majority or at least a certain number of sources may not work well in the presence of copying between the sources. However, correlation between sources can be much broader than copying: sources may provide data from complementary domains (\emph{negative correlation}), extractors may focus on different types of information (\emph{negative correlation}), and extractors may apply common rules in extraction (\emph{positive correlation, without copying}). In this paper we present novel techniques modeling correlations between sources and applying it in truth finding.Comment: Sigmod'201

Women and the Paradox of Inequality in the Twentieth Century

Throughout American history, male/female has defined an enduring binary embodied in access to jobs, income, and wealth.Women’s economic history shows how for centuries sex has inscribed a durable inequality into the structure of American labor markets that civil and political rights have moderated but not removed. This economic experience of women reflects the paradox of inequality in America: the coexistence of structural inequality with individual and group mobility.Women, like African Americans, have gained what T.H. Marshall labeled civil and political citizenship. No longer are they legally disenfranchised, and discrimination on account of race and gender is against the law. They have also increased their social citizenship, as represented by access to jobs and education, and women, in particular, benefit from many programs of the welfare state. Yet, they remain unequal. On the whole, they earn less than men, end up in occupational ghettos, bump up against glass ceilings, and find themselves, in relation to men, as poor as ever

Absorbent products for urinary/faecal incontinence: a comparative evaluation of key product designs

Background: The UK health service, nursing homes and public spend around £94 million per year on incontinence pads (absorbent products) to contain urine and/or faeces, but the research base for making informed choices between different product designs is very weak.Objectives: The aim of this trial was to compare the performance and cost-effectiveness of the key absorbent product designs to provide a more solid basis for guiding selection and purchase.A further aim was to carry out the first stage in the development of a quality of life instrument for measuring the impact of absorbent product use on users' lives.Design: The work involved three clinical trials focusing on the three biggest market sectors. Each trial had a similar crossover design in which each participant tested all products within their group in random order.Settings, participants and methods: In Trial 1, 85 women with light urinary incontinence living in the community tested three products from each of the four design categories available (total of 12 test products): disposable inserts (pads); menstrual pads; washable pants with integral pad; and washable inserts. In Trial 2a, 85 moderate/heavily incontinent adults (urinary or urinary/faecal) living in the community (49 men and 36 women) tested three (or two) products from each of the five design categories available (total of 14 test products): disposable inserts (with mesh pants); disposable diapers (nappies); disposable pull-ups (similar to toddlers' trainer pants); disposable T-shaped diapers (nappies with waist-band); and washable diapers. All products were provided in a daytime and a (mostly more absorbent) night-time variant. In these first two trials, the test products were selected on the basis of data from pilot studies. In Trial 2b, 100 moderate/heavily incontinent adults (urinary or urinary/faecal) living in 10 nursing homes (27 men and 73 women) evaluated one product from each of the four disposable design categories from Trial 2a. Products were selected on the basis of product performance in Trial 2a and, again, daytime and night-time variants were provided. The first phase of work to develop a quality of life tool for measuring the impact of using different pad designs was carried out by interviewing participants from Trials 1 and 2a.Outcome measures: Product performance was characterised using validated questionnaires, which asked the participants (in Trials 1 and 2a) or carers (all participants in Trial 2b, except for the few who could report for themselves) to evaluate various aspects of pad performance (leakage, ease of putting on, discreetness, etc.) using a five-point scale (very good–very poor) at the end of the week (or 2 weeks for Trial 2b) of product testing. In addition, participants/carers were asked to save individual used pads in bags for weighing and to indicate the severity of any leakage from them on a three-point scale (none, a little, a lot). These data were used to determine differences in leakage performance. Numbers of laundry items and pads used were recorded to estimate costs, and skin health changes were recorded by the participant or by the researchers (Trial 2b). At the end of testing, participants were interviewed and ranked their preferences (with and without costs), stated the acceptability of each design (highly acceptable–totally unacceptable) and recorded their overall opinion on a visual analogue scale (VAS) of 0–100 points (worst design–best design). This VAS score was used with product costs to estimate cost-effectiveness. In addition, a timed pad changing exercise was conducted with 10 women from Trial 2b to determine any differences between product designs.Results: Results presented are for statistically and clinically significant findings.<br/

A model of horse mussel reef formation in the Bay of Fundy based on population growth and geological processes

From a total of 14 geological sediment provinces recognized in the Bay of Fundy only five: sand with bioherms, gravel/cobble, gravel /scallop bed, mottled gravel and glacio-marine mud were found to have significant populations of the horse mussel, Modiolus modiolus. Valve increment measures of annual growth rings in the early years of life of populations of these Bay of Fundy horse mussels, suggest that growth rates vary with the geological province where they are found. Horse mussel populations grow fastest on sand with bioherms, closely followed by those growing on gravel/scallop bed; the slowest growing are found on gravel/ cobble and mottled gravel geological provinces. Multibeam bathymetry and backscatter data have been collected in an area of mussel reefs in the central part of the Bay of Fundy. The data indicates that the mussel reefs (bioherms) tend to occur on the eastern side of small, gravel covered, glacial ridges on the seabed and form a variety of single and multiple, long and short reefs that rise above the seabed up to 3 m high. They are always associated with sand in transport at the seabed in a variety of bedforms. A conceptual model of formation and location is presented that considers: current velocity and turbulence, well-mixed water masses, seabed morphology, sediment distribution and sediment transport, as causative factors. RÉSUMÉ D’un total de 14 classes de sédiments géologiques reconnues dans la baie de Fundy, seulement cinq (biohermes, gravier/galets, gravier/fond de pétoncle, gravier tacheté et boue glacio-marine) renfermaient des populations importantes de modiole Modiolus modiolus. Les mesures de l’augmentation valvaire des cernes d’accroissement annuels durant les premières années de vie des populations de modioles dans la baie de Fundy indiqueraient que les taux de croissance varient selon la classe de sédiment géologique où ils se trouvent. Les populations de modioles croissent plus rapidement dans le sable renfermant des biohermes, et la croissance est presque aussi grande chez les modioles présents dans les classes de sédiments composées de gravier/fond de pétoncles; la croissance la plus lente a été observée dans les classes de sédiments géologiques composées de gravier/galets et de gravier tacheté. Des données ont été recueillies au moyen de la bathymétrie par secteurs et de la rétrodiffusion dans une zone de récifs de moules de la partie centrale de la baie de Fundy. Les données indiquent que les récifs de moules (biohermes) semblent se former sur le côté est de petites crêtes glaciaires recouvertes de gravier sur le plancher sous‑marin, et qu’ils forment divers récifs uniques et multiples, longs et courts, qui s’élèvent sur le plancher sous-marin jusqu’à une hauteur de trois mètres. Ils sont toujours associés avec le sable déplacé sur le plancher sous-marin dans diverses morphologies de fond. On présente un modèle conceptuel de la formation et de l’emplacement qui considère comme facteurs de causalité les éléments suivants : la vitesse et la turbulence actuelles, les masses d’eau homogènes, la morphologie du plancher sous-marin, la répartition des sédiments et les transports sédimentaires. [Traduit par la redaction

Document Filtering for Long-tail Entities

Filtering relevant documents with respect to entities is an essential task in the context of knowledge base construction and maintenance. It entails processing a time-ordered stream of documents that might be relevant to an entity in order to select only those that contain vital information. State-of-the-art approaches to document filtering for popular entities are entity-dependent: they rely on and are also trained on the specifics of differentiating features for each specific entity. Moreover, these approaches tend to use so-called extrinsic information such as Wikipedia page views and related entities which is typically only available only for popular head entities. Entity-dependent approaches based on such signals are therefore ill-suited as filtering methods for long-tail entities. In this paper we propose a document filtering method for long-tail entities that is entity-independent and thus also generalizes to unseen or rarely seen entities. It is based on intrinsic features, i.e., features that are derived from the documents in which the entities are mentioned. We propose a set of features that capture informativeness, entity-saliency, and timeliness. In particular, we introduce features based on entity aspect similarities, relation patterns, and temporal expressions and combine these with standard features for document filtering. Experiments following the TREC KBA 2014 setup on a publicly available dataset show that our model is able to improve the filtering performance for long-tail entities over several baselines. Results of applying the model to unseen entities are promising, indicating that the model is able to learn the general characteristics of a vital document. The overall performance across all entities---i.e., not just long-tail entities---improves upon the state-of-the-art without depending on any entity-specific training data.Comment: CIKM2016, Proceedings of the 25th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management. 201

Factors affecting continuation of clean intermittent catheterisation in people with multiple sclerosis: results of the COSMOS mixed-methods study

Background:  Clean intermittent catheterisation (CIC) is often recommended for people with multiple sclerosis (MS).  Objective:  To determine the variables that affect continuation or discontinuation of the use of CIC.  Methods:  A three-part mixed-method study (prospective longitudinal cohort (n = 56), longitudinal qualitative interviews (n = 20) and retrospective survey (n = 456)) was undertaken, which identified the variables that influenced CIC continuation/discontinuation. The potential explanatory variables investigated in each study were the individual’s age, gender, social circumstances, number of urinary tract infections, bladder symptoms, presence of co-morbidity, stage of multiple sclerosis and years since diagnosis, as well as CIC teaching method and intensity.  Results:  For some people with MS the prospect of undertaking CIC is difficult and may take a period of time to accept before beginning the process of using CIC. Ongoing support from clinicians, support at home and a perceived improvement in symptoms such as nocturia were positive predictors of continuation. In many cases, the development of a urinary tract infection during the early stages of CIC use had a significant detrimental impact on continuation.  Conclusion:  Procedures for reducing the incidence of urinary tract infection during the learning period (i.e. when being taught and becoming competent) should be considered, as well as the development of a tool to aid identification of a person’s readiness to try CIC

"How to project customer retention" revisited: the role of duration dependence

Cohort-level retention rates typically increase over time, and the beta-geometric (BG) distribution has proven to be a robust model for capturing and projecting these patterns into the future. According to this model, the phenomenon of increasing cohort-level retention rates is purely due to cross-sectional heterogeneity; an individual customer’s propensity to churn does not change over time. In this paper we present the beta-discrete-Weibull (BdW) distribution as an extension to the BG model, one that allows individual-level churn probabilities to increase or decrease over time. In addition to capturing the phenomenon of increasing cohort-level retention rates, this new model can also accommodate situations in which there is an initial dip in retention rates before they increase (i.e., a U-shaped cohort-level retention curve). A key finding is that even when aggregate retention rates are monotonically increasing, the individual-level churn probabilities are unlikely to be declining over time, as conventional wisdom would suggest. We carefully explore these connections between heterogeneity, duration dependence, and the shape of the retention curve, and draw some managerially relevant conclusions, e.g., that accounting for cross-sectional heterogeneity is more important than accounting for any individual-level dynamics in churn propensities

Blind men and elephants: What do citation summaries tell us about a research article?

The old Asian legend about the blind men and the elephant comes to mind when looking at how different authors of scientific papers describe a piece of related prior work. It turns out that different citations to the same paper often focus on different aspects of that paper and that neither provides a full description of its full set of contributions. In this article, we will describe our investigation of this phenomenon. We studied citation summaries in the context of research papers in the biomedical domain. A citation summary is the set of citing sentences for a given article and can be used as a surrogate for the actual article in a variety of scenarios. It contains information that was deemed by peers to be important. Our study shows that citation summaries overlap to some extent with the abstracts of the papers and that they also differ from them in that they focus on different aspects of these papers than do the abstracts. In addition to this, co-cited articles (which are pairs of articles cited by another article) tend to be similar. We show results based on a lexical similarity metric called cohesion to justify our claims.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57540/1/20707_ftp.pd

Juvenile Corrections in the Era of Reform: A Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Studies

In this article, the authors synthesize knowledge from select qualitative studies examining rehabilitation-oriented juvenile residential corrections and aftercare programs. Using meta-synthesis methodology, the authors extracted and coded content from 10 research studies conducted by five authors across criminology, sociology, and social welfare disciplines. The total number of published works based on those studies analyzed was 18. Collectively, these studies offer insight into three major components of the juvenile correctional experience: therapeutic treatment and evidence-based practices, the shaping of identities and masculinities, and preparation for reentry. This analysis is particularly important as the United States is currently in an era of reform during which policymakers are increasingly espousing the benefits of rehabilitation for youth offenders over punishment. These studies took place before, during, and after this era of reform, and yet, the findings are surprisingly consistent over time, raising key questions about the effectiveness of the reform strategies