HealthE: Classifying Entities in Online Textual Health Advice

The processing of entities in natural language is essential to many medical NLP systems. Unfortunately, existing datasets vastly under-represent the entities required to model public health relevant texts such as health advice often found on sites like WebMD. People rely on such information for personal health management and clinically relevant decision making. In this work, we release a new annotated dataset, HealthE, consisting of 6,756 health advice. HealthE has a more granular label space compared to existing medical NER corpora and contains annotation for diverse health phrases. Additionally, we introduce a new health entity classification model, EP S-BERT, which leverages textual context patterns in the classification of entity classes. EP S-BERT provides a 4-point increase in F1 score over the nearest baseline and a 34-point increase in F1 when compared to off-the-shelf medical NER tools trained to extract disease and medication mentions from clinical texts. All code and data are publicly available on Github

The 5'-3' exoribonuclease Pacman (Xrn1) regulates expression of the heat shock protein Hsp67Bc and the microRNA miR-277-3p in Drosophila wing imaginal discs

Pacman/Xrn1 is a highly conserved exoribonuclease known to play a critical role in gene regulatory events such as control of mRNA stability, RNA interference and regulation via miRNAs. Although Pacman has been well studied in Drosophila tissue culture cells, the biologically relevant cellular pathways controlled by Pacman in natural tissues are unknown. This study shows that a hypomorphic mutation in pacman (pcm5) results in smaller wing imaginal discs. These tissues, found in the larva, are known to grow and differentiate to form wing and thorax structures in the adult fly. Using microarray analysis, followed by quantitative RT-PCR, we show that eight mRNAs were increased in level by >2 fold in the pcm5 mutant wing discs compared to the control. The levels of pre mRNAs were tested for five of these mRNAs; four did not increase in the pcm5 mutant, showing that they are regulated at the post-transcriptional level and therefore could be directly affected by Pacman. These transcripts include one that encodes the heat-shock protein Hsp67Bc, which is upregulated 11.9-fold at the post-transcriptional level and 2.3-fold at the protein level. One miRNA, miR-277-3p, is 5.6-fold downregulated at the post-transcriptional level in mutant discs, suggesting that Pacman affects its processing in this tissue. Together, these data show that a relatively small number of mRNAs and miRNAs substantially change in abundance in pacman mutant wing imaginal discs. Since Hsp67Bc is known to regulate autophagy and protein synthesis, it is possible that Pacman may control the growth of wing imaginal discs by regulating these processes

A Comparative Analysis of the Academic Performance of Native and Transfer Students

Results of a study comparing the academic performance of native and transfer students

The Math Placement Tests: Relationships to Mathematics Course Performance, Mathematics Course Selection, and Other Predictors of Academic Achievement

The effectiveness of the Math Placement Tests (Intermediate and Advanced) is anayzed

An Addendum to the Math Placement Tests: Relationships to Mathematics Course Performance, Mathematics Course Selection, and Other Predictors of Academic Achievement

The effectiveness of the Math Placement Test, Basic, is analyzed

The Math Placement Tests: Relationships to Mathematics Course Performance, Mathematics course Selection, and Other Predictors of Academic Achievement

Executive Summary: The Math Placement Tests have been used by all four-year institutions in the state of Washington to aid in the placement of students into their first college-level mathematics course since 1984. This report was prepared in response to concerns of Western Washington University\u27s Mathematics Department regarding the usefulness of. the placement tests in correctly placing students in mathematics courses. The relationships of the math placement tests to final mathematics course grade and other indicators of academic achievement, including high school GPA, WPCT-Q score, and SAT-M score were evaluated. The math placement tests were found to be moderately positively related to final grade and each of the three indicator variables. The math placement tests were not, in most cases, superior to high school GPA andjor WPCT-Q score in prediction of final mathematics course grade. The percentage of students who passed (earned a grade of c¬ or better) their mathematics course varied depending on the course in which they enrolled, which placement test they took, and the score they received on the placement test. The probability of receiving a c- or better among those who took the Intermediate Algebra Test ranged from a low of 48.2 percent in Math 103 to a high of 72.4 percent in Math 155. The chance of passing a mathematics course for those who took the Pre-Calculus Test ranged from a low of 63.5 percent in Math 103 to a high of 90.9 in Math 104. In general, the probability of receiving a passing grade increased with higher Math Placement Test scores. For a number of courses, the current cut-off score on the Intermediate Algebra Test may be too low. students who enrolled with scores below, at, or slightly above these cut-offs had, in many cases, only a slim chance of passing the course. Conversely, cut-off scores on the Pre-Calculus Test for admission to many courses were too high. Students who had a reasonable chance of passing these courses would be denied admission based on the current cut-off points. It is suggested that the current cut-off scores be re-evaluated and when new cut-offs are decided upon, that they be more strictly adhered to

A Comparative Analysis of the Academic Performance of Native and Transfer Students

Executive Summary: This study utilized the records of two samples of wwu upper¬ division students (those with 90 credits and above) to evaluate the relationships of academic performance to students\u27 admission status (either native or transfer) and other selected student characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, and age. The first sample measured academic performance in terms of cumulative WWU GPA. The second sample looked at grades earned in 300 and 400 level courses only (upper-division GPA). This report was prepared as a follow-up to an earlier study that used a much more limited sample. Females were found to have consistently higher GPAs than males, regardless of the sample or the type of GPA (cumulative or upper-division) used in the analysis. Older students generally outperformed younger students although the relationship between age and academic performance was mediated by a student\u27s admission status. Students of a given age but with different admission statuses or of the same admission status but of different ages in many cases did not have equivalent GPAs. In general, among younger students natives outperformed two-year transfer students. No such difference was found among older students. This study also found differences in both the cumulative GPA and the upper-division GPA earned by different ethnic groups. Caucasians had a higher average cumulative GPA than Blacks and a higher average upper-division GPA than both Blacks and Asians. In addition, American Indian students also had a higher average upper-division GPA than Black students. A student\u27s grade point average when he or she enters Western (high school GPA for natives and GPA at the institution attended before transferring to Western for transfer students) was the best predictor of how well a student would do academically once at Western. WPCT subtest scores also aided in the prediction of both cumulative and upper-division GPAs for both native and transfer students. However, the relative importance of these subtests was different for students of different admission statuses. Prediction of native students\u27 academic performance was most enhanced by the WPCT-Verbal subtest score whereas prediction of a transfer student\u27s academic performance was more improved by the knowledge of his or her WPCT-Quantitative subtest score. After conducting several separate analyses of the differences and similarities of WWU\u27s native and transfer students, it can be concluded that when comparing students of different admission statuses regardless of age there is effectively no difference in the academic performance of Western\u27s native and two-year transfer students

Correlation of ISS Electric Potential Variations with Mission Operations

Orbiting approximately 400 km above the Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) is a unique research laboratory used to conduct ground-breaking science experiments in space. The ISS has eight Solar Array Wings (SAW), and each wing is 11.7 meters wide and 35.1 meters long. The SAWs are controlled individually to maximize power output, minimize stress to the ISS structure, and minimize interference with other ISS operations such as vehicle dockings and Extra-Vehicular Activities (EVA). The Solar Arrays are designed to operate at 160 Volts. These large, high power solar arrays are negatively grounded to the ISS and collect charged particles (predominately electrons) as they travel through the space plasma in the Earth's ionosphere. If not controlled, this collected charge causes floating potential variations which can result in arcing, causing injury to the crew during an EVA or damage to hardware [1]. The environmental catalysts for ISS floating potential variations include plasma density and temperature fluctuations and magnetic induction from the Earth's magnetic field. These alone are not enough to cause concern for ISS, but when they are coupled with the large positive potential on the solar arrays, floating potentials up to negative 95 Volts have been observed. Our goal is to differentiate the operationally induced fluctuations in floating potentials from the environmental causes. Differentiating will help to determine what charging can be controlled, and we can then design the proper operations controls for charge collection mitigation. Additionally, the knowledge of how high power solar arrays interact with the environment and what regulations or design techniques can be employed to minimize charging impacts can be applied to future programs