What Are People Asking About COVID-19? A Question Classification Dataset

We present COVID-Q, a set of 1,690 questions about COVID-19 from 13 sources, which we annotate into 15 question categories and 207 question clusters. The most common questions in our dataset asked about transmission, prevention, and societal effects of COVID, and we found that many questions that appeared in multiple sources were not answered by any FAQ websites of reputable organizations such as the CDC and FDA. We post our dataset publicly at https://github.com/JerryWei03/COVID-Q. For classifying questions into 15 categories, a BERT baseline scored 58.1% accuracy when trained on 20 examples per category, and for a question clustering task, a BERT + triplet loss baseline achieved 49.5% accuracy. We hope COVID-Q can help either for direct use in developing applied systems or as a domain-specific resource for model evaluation.Comment: Published in Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on NLP for COVID-19 at ACL 202

Salary in the National Basketball Association

This paper intends to analyze the association between NBA statistics and winning percentage and determine if that same relationship holds for player compensation and individual player statistics. To determine the associations, two separate multiple regressions are utilized during the NBA seasons, 2013-2014 and 2014-2015. This paper finds that teams are not effectively compensating players, with more analytical inclined front offices being more effective at compensating players

Predicting Propofol-Induced Burst Suppression Using an Individualized Model-Based Approach Over Repeated Treatments

Our group is investigating the antidepressant effects of high-dose propofol, but dosing propofol to induce standardized changes in EEG activity (“burst suppression”) is challenging due to limited knowledge of each subject’s pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD). In this paper, we approximated PK-PD models for propofol-induced burst suppression (PIBS), based on multiple subjects over repeated treatments. We then applied these models to predict BSR in each subject’s repeated treatment, then evaluate their predictive performances. We hypothesized that predicting BSR from a greater number of previous treatments would improve performance, but our current results are not conclusive enough to validate the hypothesis. We discuss our contributions, limitations, and adjustments for future studies

EUS-guided portal pressure gradient measurement with a simple novel device: a human pilot study.

Background and aimsPortal hypertension is a serious adverse event of liver cirrhosis. Recently, we developed a simple novel technique for EUS-guided portal pressure gradient (PPG) measurement (PPGM). Our animal studies showed excellent correlation between EUS-PPGM and interventional radiology-acquired PPGM. In this video we demonstrate the results of the first human pilot study of EUS-PPGM in patients with liver disease.MethodsEUS-PPGM was performed by experienced endosonographers using a linear echoendoscope, a 25-gauge FNA needle, and a novel compact manometer. The portal vein and hepatic vein (or inferior vena cava) were targeted by use of a transgastric or transduodenal approach. Feasibility was defined as successful PPGM in each patient. Safety was based on adverse events captured in a postprocedural interview.ResultsTwenty-eight patients underwent EUS-PPGM with 100% technical success and no adverse events. PPG ranged from 1.5 to 19 mm Hg and had excellent correlation with clinical parameters of portal hypertension, including the presence of varices (P = .0002), PH gastropathy (P = .007), and thrombocytopenia (P = .036).ConclusionThis novel technique of EUS-PPGM using a 25-gauge needle and compact manometer is feasible and appears safe. Given the availability of EUS and the simplicity of the manometry setup, EUS-guided PPG may represent a promising breakthrough for procuring indispensable information in the management of patients with liver disease

I. Generation and mechanistic study of t-butyl exo-methylene-substituted 2,3-dimethylene-2,3-dihydrofurans and a thiophene analogue; II. Generation and study of the dimerization of alkyl ring-substituted 2,3-dimethylene2,3-dihydrofurans; III. Diels-Alder reaction of 2,3-dimethylene-2,3-dihydrofuran and o-xylylene; IV. Formation of the 2,5-dimethylene-2,5-dihydrothiophene trimer and its synthetic application

In Section I, we report the generation and a mechanistic study of t-butyl exo-methylene-substituted 2,3-dimethylene-2,3-dihydrofurans and a thiophene analogue. The results not only unambiguously sup- port the previous proposed two-step mechanism for the dimerization of 2,3-dimethylene-2,3-dihydrofuran (1), they also provide us with two of the most unreactive o-quinodimethanes, namely, 2-methylene-3-t-butylmethylene-2,3-dihydrofuran (2), and 2,3-di-t-butylmethylene-2,3-dihydrofuran;In Section II, the preparation and the dimerization of a series of alkyl ring-substituted and carbomethoxy ring-substituted deriva- tives of 1 are presented. This study concludes that bulky alkyl sub- stituents on the ring of furan monomers do not promote the 4+2 dimerization process;In Section III, a Diels-Alder reaction of 1 and its two deuterated analogues with methyl acrylate reveals the presence of a secondary deuterium isotope effect which strongly supports a stepwise mechanism. This conclusion is further strengthened by the fact that the Diels-Alder reaction of 1 with cis dienophiles proceeds non-stereospecifically. A comparison study of o-xylylene with dienophiles reaches the same conclusion;In Section IV, we present a convenient synthesis of cycloocta- decane from the thiophene trimer of 2,5-dimethylene-2,5-dihydro-;thiophene. This synthesis offers an efficient alternative to existing routes; *DOE Report IS-T-1180. This work was performed under contract No. W-7405-Eng-82 with the U.S. Department of Energy