GeoCLEF 2006: the CLEF 2006 Ccross-language geographic information retrieval track overview

After being a pilot track in 2005, GeoCLEF advanced to be a regular track within CLEF 2006. The purpose of GeoCLEF is to test and evaluate cross-language geographic information retrieval (GIR): retrieval for topics with a geographic specification. For GeoCLEF 2006, twenty-five search topics were defined by the organizing groups for searching English, German, Portuguese and Spanish document collections. Topics were translated into English, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese. Several topics in 2006 were significantly more geographically challenging than in 2005. Seventeen groups submitted 149 runs (up from eleven groups and 117 runs in GeoCLEF 2005). The groups used a variety of approaches, including geographic bounding boxes, named entity extraction and external knowledge bases (geographic thesauri and ontologies and gazetteers)

Barriers to health care for undocumented immigrants: A literature review

With the unprecedented international migration seen in recent years, policies that limit health care access have become prevalent. Barriers to health care for undocumented immigrants go beyond policy and range from financial limitations, to discrimination and fear of deportation. This paper is aimed at reviewing the literature on barriers to health care for undocumented immigrants and identifying strategies that have or could be used to address these barriers. To address study questions, we conducted a literature review of published articles from the last 10 years in PubMed using three main concepts: immigrants, undocumented, and access to health care. The search yielded 341 articles of which 66 met study criteria. With regard to barriers, we identified barriers in the policy arena focused on issues related to law and policy including limitations to access and type of health care. These varied widely across countries but ultimately impacted the type and amount of health care any undocumented immigrant could receive. Within the health system, barriers included bureaucratic obstacles including paperwork and registration systems. The alternative care available (safety net) was generally limited and overwhelmed. Finally, there was evidence of widespread discriminatory practices within the health care system itself. The individual level focused on the immigrant’s fear of deportation, stigma, and lack of capital (both social and financial) to obtain services. Recommendations identified in the papers reviewed included advocating for policy change to increase access to health care for undocumented immigrants, providing novel insurance options, expanding safety net services, training providers to better care for immigrant populations, and educating undocumented immigrants on navigating the system. There are numerous barriers to health care for undocumented immigrants. These vary by country and frequently change. Despite concerns that access to health care attracts immigrants, data demonstrates that people generally do not migrate to obtain health care. Solutions are needed that provide for noncitizens’ health care

Challenges to evaluation of multilingual geographic information retrieval in GeoCLEF

This is the third year of the evaluation of geographic information retrieval (GeoCLEF) within the Cross-Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF). GeoCLEF 2006 presented topics and documents in four languages (English, German, Portuguese and Spanish). After two years of evaluation we are beginning to understand the challenges to both Geographic Information Retrieval from text and of evaluation of the results of geographic information retrieval. This poster enumerates some of these challenges to evaluation and comments on the limitations encountered in the first two evaluations

Anatomy of Cirrus Clouds: Results from the Emerald Airborne Campaigns

2000 FLORIDA AVE NW, WASHINGTON, USA, DC, 2000

UV/Ozone treatment to reduce metal-graphene contact resistance

We report reduced contact resistance of single-layer graphene devices by using ultraviolet ozone (UVO) treatment to modify the metal/graphene contact interface. The devices were fabricated from mechanically transferred, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) grown, single layer graphene. UVO treatment of graphene in the contact regions as defined by photolithography and prior to metal deposition was found to reduce interface contamination originating from incomplete removal of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and photoresist. Our control experiment shows that exposure times up to 10 minutes did not introduce significant disorder in the graphene as characterized by Raman spectroscopy. By using the described approach, contact resistance of less than 200 {\Omega} {\mu}m was achieved, while not significantly altering the electrical properties of the graphene channel region of devices.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism and the Evolutionary Objection: Rethinking the Relevance of Empirical Science

Neo-Aristotelian metaethical naturalism is a modern attempt at naturalizing ethics using ideas from Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics. Proponents of this view argue that moral virtue in human beings is an instance of natural goodness, a kind of goodness supposedly also found in the realm of non-human living things. Many critics question whether neo-Aristotelian naturalism is tenable in light of modern evolutionary biology. Two influential lines of objection have appealed to an evolutionary understanding of human nature and natural teleology to argue against this view. In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of these two seemingly different lines of objection as raising instances of the same dilemma, giving neo-Aristotelians a choice between contradicting our considered moral judgment and abandoning metaethical naturalism. I argue that resolving the dilemma requires showing a particular kind of continuity between the norms of moral virtue and norms that are necessary for understanding non-human living things. I also argue that in order to show such a continuity, neo-Aristotelians need to revise the relationship they adopt with empirical science and acknowledge that the latter is relevant to assessing their central commitments regarding living things. Finally, I argue that to move this debate forward, both neo-Aristotelians and their critics should pay attention to recent work on the concept of organism in evolutionary and developmental biology