72 research outputs found
Gold Standard Online Debates Summaries and First Experiments Towards Automatic Summarization of Online Debate Data
Usage of online textual media is steadily increasing. Daily, more and more
news stories, blog posts and scientific articles are added to the online
volumes. These are all freely accessible and have been employed extensively in
multiple research areas, e.g. automatic text summarization, information
retrieval, information extraction, etc. Meanwhile, online debate forums have
recently become popular, but have remained largely unexplored. For this reason,
there are no sufficient resources of annotated debate data available for
conducting research in this genre. In this paper, we collected and annotated
debate data for an automatic summarization task. Similar to extractive gold
standard summary generation our data contains sentences worthy to include into
a summary. Five human annotators performed this task. Inter-annotator
agreement, based on semantic similarity, is 36% for Cohen's kappa and 48% for
Krippendorff's alpha. Moreover, we also implement an extractive summarization
system for online debates and discuss prominent features for the task of
summarizing online debate data automatically.Comment: accepted and presented at the CICLING 2017 - 18th International
Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistic
Mobile Agent-Based Distributed Fusion (MADFUSION) System
Abstract-This paper considers a system architecture referred to as the Mobile Agent-Based Distributed Fusion (MADFUSION) system. The system environment consists of a peer-to-peer ad-hoc network in which information may be dynamically distributed and collected via publish/subscribe functionality implemented at each node of the network to facilitate data sharing and decision making in Level 2 Fusion. The Level 2 decision making process implemented in the system consists of the Enhanced Doctrinal Template Matching (EDTM) algorithm which is shown to be an improvement over the pre-existing Doctrinal Template Matching algorithm. This algorithm is developed to operates on information obtained from lower layer fusion processes in order to identify aggregated groups of entities. The template matching algorithm is shown to be an improvement over a previously existing algorithm. The MADFUSION system is proposed to extend the client/server architecture of various publish/subscribe applications to an architecture providing decentralization, reconfigurability, mobility, attainability and prevention of single points of failure. The system is implemented in a wireless ad-hoc network (802.11b) and performs the publish/subscribe functionality through the implementation of a mobile agent based framework. The software agents travel deterministically from node-to-node carrying a data payload consisting of information which may be subscribed to by users within the network. Within this system, situation awareness (Level 2 fusion) can be sought by using these multi-domain information sources (GMTI, Video, or SAR) for evaluation at each node with different distributed information fusion algorithms
Investigation of the deposition and emission of mercury in arctic snow during an atmospheric mercury depletion event
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94701/1/jgrd14741.pd
Identification of a common polymorphism in COQ8B acting as a modifier of thoracic aortic aneurysm severity
Thoracic aortic aneurysm (TAA) predisposes to sudden, life-threatening aortic dissection. The factors that regulate interindividual variability in TAA severity are not well understood. Identifying a molecular basis for this variability has the potential to improve clinical risk stratification and advance mechanistic insight. We previously identified COQ8B, a gene important for biosynthesis of coenzyme Q, as a candidate genetic modifier of TAA severity. Here, we investigated the physiological role of COQ8B in human aortic smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and further tested its genetic association with TAA severity. We find COQ8B protein localizes to mitochondria in SMCs, and loss of mitochondrial COQ8B leads to increased oxidative stress, decreased mitochondrial respiration, and altered expression of SMC contractile genes. Oxidative stress and mitochondrial cristae defects were prevalent in the medial layer of human proximal aortic tissues in patients with TAA, and COQ8B expression was decreased in TAA SMCs compared with controls. A common single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs3865452 in COQ8B (c.521A>G, p.H174R) was associated with decreased rate of aortic root dilation in young patients with TAA. In addition, the SNP was less frequent in a second cohort of early-onset thoracic aortic dissection cases compared with controls. COQ8B protein levels in aortic SMCs were increased in TAA patients homozygous for rs3865452 compared with those homozygous for the reference allele. Thus, COQ8B is important for aortic SMC metabolism, which is dysregulated in TAA, and rs3865452 may decrease TAA severity by increasing COQ8B level. Genotyping rs3865452 may be useful for clinical risk stratification and tailored aortopathy management
Mercury isotopes in a forested ecosystem: Implications for airâsurface exchange dynamics and the global mercury cycle
Forests mediate the biogeochemical cycling of mercury (Hg) between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems; however, there remain many gaps in our understanding of these processes. Our objectives in this study were to characterize Hg isotopic composition within forests, and use natural abundance stable Hg isotopes to track sources and reveal mechanisms underlying the cycling of Hg. We quantified the stable Hg isotopic composition of foliage, forest floor, mineral soil, precipitation, and total gaseous mercury (THg (g) ) in the atmosphere and in evasion from soil, in 10âyearâold aspen forests at the Rhinelander FACE experiment in northeastern Wisconsin, USA. The effect of increased atmospheric CO 2 and O 3 concentrations on Hg isotopic composition was small relative to differences among forest ecosystem components. Precipitation samples had δ 202 Hg values of â0.74 to 0.06â° and â 199 Hg values of 0.16 to 0.82â°. Atmospheric THg (g) had δ 202 Hg values of 0.48 to 0.93â° and â 199 Hg values of â0.21 to â0.15â°. Uptake of THg (g) by foliage resulted in a large (â2.89â°) shift in δ 202 Hg values; foliage displayed δ 202 Hg values of â2.53 to â1.89â° and â 199 Hg values of â0.37 to â0.23â°. Forest floor samples had δ 202 Hg values of â1.88 to â1.22â° and â 199 Hg values of â0.22 to â0.14â°. Mercury isotopes distinguished geogenic sources of Hg and atmospheric derived sources of Hg in soil, and showed that precipitation Hg only accounted for ~16% of atmospheric Hg inputs. The isotopic composition of Hg evasion from the forest floor was similar to atmospheric THg (g) ; however, there were systematic differences in δ 202 Hg values and MIF of even isotopes (â 200 Hg and â 204 Hg). Mercury evasion from the forest floor may have arisen from airâsurface exchange of atmospheric THg (g) , but was not the emission of legacy Hg from soils, nor reâemission of wetâdeposition. This implies that there was net atmospheric THg (g) deposition to the forest soils. Furthermore, MDF of Hg isotopes during foliar uptake and airâsurface exchange of atmospheric THg (g) resulted in the release of Hg with very positive δ 202 Hg values to the atmosphere, which is key information for modeling the isotopic balance of the global mercury cycle, and may indicate a shorter residence time than previously recognized for the atmospheric mercury pool. Key points Atmospheric Hg was fractionated during uptake by foliage (â2.89 permil δ202Hg) Hg evading from soil was from atmospheric Hg interaction with soil environment Airâsurface exchange of Hg releases Hg with positive δ202Hg to global reservoirPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/1/2011GB004202RRts04.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/2/2011GB004202RRts05.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/3/2011GB004202RRts01.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/4/gbc20021.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/5/2011GB004202RRts06.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/6/2011GB004202RRts02.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/7/2011GB004202RRts07.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97463/8/2011GB004202RRts03.pd
The use of Pb, Sr, and Hg isotopes in Great Lakes precipitation as a tool for pollution source attribution
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155739/1/Sherman_et_al_2014_Use_of_Pb.pd
Mercury Concentration and Isotopic Composition of Epiphytic Tree Lichens in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155704/1/Blum_et_al_2012_Mercury_concentration.pd
Isotopic Characterization of Mercury Downstream of Historic Industrial Contamination in the South River, Virginia
Historic point source mercury (Hg)
contamination from industrial processes on the South River (Waynesboro,
Virginia) ended decades ago, but elevated Hg concentrations persist
in the river system. In an effort to better understand Hg sources,
mobility, and transport in the South River, we analyzed total Hg (THg)
concentrations and Hg stable isotope compositions of streambed sediments,
stream bank soils, suspended particles, and filtered surface waters.
Samples were collected along a longitudinal transect of the South
River, starting upstream of the historic Hg contamination point-source
and extending downstream to the confluence with the South Fork Shenandoah
River. Analysis of the THg concentration and Hg isotopic composition
of these environmental samples indicates that the regional background
Hg source is isotopically distinct in both Î<sup>199</sup>Hg
and δ<sup>202</sup>Hg from Hg derived from the original source
of contamination, allowing the tracing of contamination-sourced Hg
throughout the study reach. Three distinct end-members are required
to explain the Hg isotopic and concentration variation observed in
the South River. A consistent negative offset in δ<sup>202</sup>Hg values (âź0.28â°) was observed between Hg in the suspended
particulate and dissolved phases, and this fractionation provides
insight into the processes governing partitioning and transport of
Hg in this contaminated river system
- âŚ