203 research outputs found
Biodefense countermeasures: the impact of Title IV of the US Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act
The 2006 US Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act gave the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) new authority to fund the development and procurement of medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats. The legislation builds on the authority the HHS gained in 2004 under Project BioShield, which established a fund to procure medical countermeasures. This article reviews the new HHS authorities and the improvements on BioShield, and it describes some of the challenges HHS will face in exercising the new authorities to fund the development and procurement of medical countermeasures against CBRN threats
Explainable Text Classification in Legal Document Review A Case Study of Explainable Predictive Coding
In today's legal environment, lawsuits and regulatory investigations require
companies to embark upon increasingly intensive data-focused engagements to
identify, collect and analyze large quantities of data. When documents are
staged for review the process can require companies to dedicate an
extraordinary level of resources, both with respect to human resources, but
also with respect to the use of technology-based techniques to intelligently
sift through data. For several years, attorneys have been using a variety of
tools to conduct this exercise, and most recently, they are accepting the use
of machine learning techniques like text classification to efficiently cull
massive volumes of data to identify responsive documents for use in these
matters. In recent years, a group of AI and Machine Learning researchers have
been actively researching Explainable AI. In an explainable AI system, actions
or decisions are human understandable. In typical legal `document review'
scenarios, a document can be identified as responsive, as long as one or more
of the text snippets in a document are deemed responsive. In these scenarios,
if predictive coding can be used to locate these responsive snippets, then
attorneys could easily evaluate the model's document classification decision.
When deployed with defined and explainable results, predictive coding can
drastically enhance the overall quality and speed of the document review
process by reducing the time it takes to review documents. The authors of this
paper propose the concept of explainable predictive coding and simple
explainable predictive coding methods to locate responsive snippets within
responsive documents. We also report our preliminary experimental results using
the data from an actual legal matter that entailed this type of document
review.Comment: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Big Dat
An Empirical Study of the Application of Machine Learning and Keyword Terms Methodologies to Privilege-Document Review Projects in Legal Matters
Protecting privileged communications and data from disclosure is paramount
for legal teams. Unrestricted legal advice, such as attorney-client
communications or litigation strategy. are vital to the legal process and are
exempt from disclosure in litigations or regulatory events. To protect this
information from being disclosed, companies and outside counsel must review
vast amounts of documents to determine those that contain privileged material.
This process is extremely costly and time consuming. As data volumes increase,
legal counsel employ methods to reduce the number of documents requiring review
while balancing the need to ensure the protection of privileged information.
Keyword searching is relied upon as a method to target privileged information
and reduce document review populations. Keyword searches are effective at
casting a wide net but return over inclusive results -- most of which do not
contain privileged information -- and without detailed knowledge of the data,
keyword lists cannot be crafted to find all privilege material.
Overly-inclusive keyword searching can also be problematic, because even while
it drives up costs, it also can cast `too far of a net' and thus produce
unreliable results.To overcome these weaknesses of keyword searching, legal
teams are using a new method to target privileged information called predictive
modeling. Predictive modeling can successfully identify privileged material but
little research has been published to confirm its effectiveness when compared
to keyword searching. This paper summarizes a study of the effectiveness of
keyword searching and predictive modeling when applied to real-world data. With
this study, this group of collaborators wanted to examine and understand the
benefits and weaknesses of both approaches to legal teams with identifying
privilege material in document populations.Comment: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data
The Origins of Covid-19 — Why It Matters (and Why It Doesn’t)
When Health emergencies arise, scientists seek to discover the cause — such as how a pathogen emerged and spread — because this knowledge can enhance our understanding of risks and strategies for prevention, preparedness, and mitigation. Yet well into the fourth year of the Covid-19 pandemic, intense political and scientific debates about its origins continue. The two major hypotheses are a natural zoonotic spillover, most likely occurring at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, and a laboratory leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). It is worth examining the efforts to discover the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the political obstacles, and what the evidence tells us. This evidence can help clarify the virus’s evolutionary path. But regardless of the origins of the virus, there are steps the global community can take to reduce future pandemic threats
Explainable Text Classification Techniques in Legal Document Review: Locating Rationales without Using Human Annotated Training Text Snippets
US corporations regularly spend millions of dollars reviewing
electronically-stored documents in legal matters. Recently, attorneys apply
text classification to efficiently cull massive volumes of data to identify
responsive documents for use in these matters. While text classification is
regularly used to reduce the discovery costs of legal matters, it also faces a
perception challenge: amongst lawyers, this technology is sometimes looked upon
as a "black box". Put simply, no extra information is provided for attorneys to
understand why documents are classified as responsive. In recent years,
explainable machine learning has emerged as an active research area. In an
explainable machine learning system, predictions or decisions made by a machine
learning model are human understandable. In legal 'document review' scenarios,
a document is responsive, because one or more of its small text snippets are
deemed responsive. In these scenarios, if these responsive snippets can be
located, then attorneys could easily evaluate the model's document
classification decisions - this is especially important in the field of
responsible AI. Our prior research identified that predictive models created
using annotated training text snippets improved the precision of a model when
compared to a model created using all of a set of documents' text as training.
While interesting, manually annotating training text snippets is not generally
practical during a legal document review. However, small increases in precision
can drastically decrease the cost of large document reviews. Automating the
identification of training text snippets without human review could then make
the application of training text snippet-based models a practical approach.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1912.0950
Major or minor placenta previa : Does it make a difference?
Introduction: Placenta previa is a severe pregnancy complication with considerable maternal and neonatal morbidity. Placenta previa can be defined as major or minor by location. Major placenta previa is associated with higher complication rates. Management of women with minor placenta previa has not been well defined. The primary goal of the study was to evaluate the accuracy of our existing screening protocol for placenta previa. Secondly, we wanted to compare pregnancy and delivery outcomes by the type of placenta previa. Methods: The study was conducted at the Helsinki University Hospital between June 2010 and September 2014. The study population consisted of all women with the antenatal ultrasound diagnosis of placenta previa during delivery. Data were retrospectively collected and analysed. Results: Altogether 176 women had placenta previa at delivery (major 129, minor 47). Placenta previa remained undiagnosed at second trimester screening ultrasound in 32 women (18.2%). Twenty (62.5%) of these cases had minor placenta previa and 12 (37.5%) had major placenta previa. Five (15.6%) of the undiagnosed cases developed life-threatening hemorrhage (>= 2500 ml) during the delivery and two had abnormally invasive placenta followed by hysterectomy. Women with major placenta previa had significantly more blood loss and delivered earlier than women with minor placenta previa. The groups were otherwise similar, including the rate of abnormally invasive placenta. Discussion: The existing protocol for placenta previa missed almost one fifth of cases. Both major and minor placenta previa are risk factors for abnormally invasive placenta and should be treated as severe conditions.Peer reviewe
Self-Care Technologies in HCI: Trends, Tensions, and Opportunities
Many studies show that self-care technologies can support patients with chronic conditions and their carers in understanding the ill body and increasing control of their condition. However, many of these studies have largely privileged a medical perspective and thus overlooked how patients and carers integrate self-care into their daily lives and mediate their conditions through technology. In this review, we focus on how patients and carers use and experience self-care technology through a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) lens. We analyse studies of self-care published in key HCI journals and conferences using the Grounded Theory Literature Review (GTLR) method and identify research trends and design tensions. We then draw out opportunities for advancing HCI research in self-care, namely, focusing further on patients' everyday life experience, considering existing collaborations in self-care, and increasing the influence on medical research and practice around self-care technology
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