On Document Relevance and Lexical Cohesion between Query Terms

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Lexical cohesion is a property of text, achieved through lexical-semantic relations between words in text. Most information retrieval systems make use of lexical relations in text only to a limited extent. In this paper we empirically investigate whether the degree of lexical cohesion between the contexts of query terms' occurrences in a document is related to its relevance to the query. Lexical cohesion between distinct query terms in a document is estimated on the basis of the lexical-semantic relations (repetition, synonymy, hyponymy and sibling) that exist between there collocates - words that co-occur with them in the same windows of text. Experiments suggest significant differences between the lexical cohesion in relevant and non-relevant document sets exist. A document ranking method based on lexical cohesion shows some performance improvements. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Effects of various calcium levels and anionic salts on blood acid-base balance, growth performance and development of tibial dyscondroplasia in broilers

The aim of this trial was to investigate the effects of chlorine and phosphate salts in the diet, and 2 different levels of diet Ca, on the acid-based balance, growth performance and development of tibial dyscondroplasia (TD) in broiler chicks. Three hundred Ross X PM3, 1-day-old broiler chicks were used during the 5-week trial. Chicks were divided into 6 groups. Three groups (2 experimental and 1 control) were given diets with Ca levels near the bottom limit of the normal requirement (starter 0.90% and grower 0.80%) and 3 groups (2 experimental and one control) were given diets with higher Ca levels (starter 1.25% and grower 1.15%). No anionic salt was added to 1 of the diets, while the other 2 were supplemented with 100 meq/kg DM CaCl2, 2H(2)O or CaHPO4. 2H(2)O. All the chicks were weighed individually at the beginning of the trial and once per week from then on. Weekly feed consumption of the chicks was recorded. At the end of the 3rd and 5th weeks, from each group 10 chicks were randomly selected and blood samples collected in order to determine the blood pH, pCO(2), HCO3- and N+, K+ and Cl- levels. A blood gas measurement device was used for this purpose. Subsequently. the right and left tibias were removed in order to check for TD and determine bone ash levels, respectively. The results of the trial indicated that the live weight gain of chicks on a lower Ca diet. except group 2 which was supplemented with Cl, was higher than that of chicks on a higher Ca diet. Cl reduced and PO4 increased the live weight gain of chicks (P<0.05). When compared to that of broilers in the control group, the addition of PO4 to the diet increased the feed consumption of the chicks. It was also recorded that the FCR was better in chicks on a lower Ca diet, except group 2 (low Ca + Cl)