The Semantic Reader Project: Augmenting Scholarly Documents through AI-Powered Interactive Reading Interfaces

Scholarly publications are key to the transfer of knowledge from scholars to others. However, research papers are information-dense, and as the volume of the scientific literature grows, the need for new technology to support the reading process grows. In contrast to the process of finding papers, which has been transformed by Internet technology, the experience of reading research papers has changed little in decades. The PDF format for sharing research papers is widely used due to its portability, but it has significant downsides including: static content, poor accessibility for low-vision readers, and difficulty reading on mobile devices. This paper explores the question "Can recent advances in AI and HCI power intelligent, interactive, and accessible reading interfaces -- even for legacy PDFs?" We describe the Semantic Reader Project, a collaborative effort across multiple institutions to explore automatic creation of dynamic reading interfaces for research papers. Through this project, we've developed ten research prototype interfaces and conducted usability studies with more than 300 participants and real-world users showing improved reading experiences for scholars. We've also released a production reading interface for research papers that will incorporate the best features as they mature. We structure this paper around challenges scholars and the public face when reading research papers -- Discovery, Efficiency, Comprehension, Synthesis, and Accessibility -- and present an overview of our progress and remaining open challenges

Developments in the Theory of X-ray Absorption and Compton Scattering.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06X-ray spectroscopy is a widely used technique in experimental and theoretical physics for studying electronic and chemical properties of materials. Theoretical approaches for studying x-ray absorption (XAS) and x-ray photoemision (XPS) properties are described by single particle Green’s function theory. In strongly correlated systems, such as transition metal oxides, it is necessary to go beyond single particle treatment in order to reasonably describe peaks in XAS spectra. In this thesis I present a simplified, semi-empirical model which describes charge-transfer excitations in XAS, thus extending the formulations of Lee, Gunarson, and Hedin. I model the XAS by a localized three-state system coupled to a photoelectron, and implemented using FEFF real space Green’s function ab initio code to include solid state effects and intrinsic losses. In the second part, I study valence electron ground state properties as a function of temperature density for Be, Li and Si. I study thermal disorder and thermal expansion effects on high momentum components of the Compton profile (CP). To calculate the CP, I use the real space Green’s function (RSGF) approach coupled with molecular dynamic simulations to create a representation of a disordered system. Thermal disorder has the effect of smearing the high momentum umklapp peak in the case of Be and Li. I find good agreement with experimental results and, to a good degree of precision I predict changes in the CP of polycrystalline Si, which undergoes a solid to liquid phase transition. In the last part of this work, I study valence electron ground state properties of Be as a function of temperature and density in the warm dense matter (WDM) regime. I compare my thermally disordered calculations of electron momentum density (EMD) with perfect crystal calculations, using effective temperature to quantitatively describe the differences. I conclude that solid state effects are important in the WDM regime and that simplified models of degenerate Fermi gas might overestimate the temperature of the system