Learning with Latent Language

The named concepts and compositional operators present in natural language provide a rich source of information about the kinds of abstractions humans use to navigate the world. Can this linguistic background knowledge improve the generality and efficiency of learned classifiers and control policies? This paper aims to show that using the space of natural language strings as a parameter space is an effective way to capture natural task structure. In a pretraining phase, we learn a language interpretation model that transforms inputs (e.g. images) into outputs (e.g. labels) given natural language descriptions. To learn a new concept (e.g. a classifier), we search directly in the space of descriptions to minimize the interpreter's loss on training examples. Crucially, our models do not require language data to learn these concepts: language is used only in pretraining to impose structure on subsequent learning. Results on image classification, text editing, and reinforcement learning show that, in all settings, models with a linguistic parameterization outperform those without

Capital Ideas - Winning State Funding for Transportation: Lessons from Recent Successes

In 2015, Congress will once again debate transportation funding at the federal level. It would be in the best interests of the nation for them to fix the perpetual shortfalls in the Highway Trust Fund and set the country on a path toward a 21st century infrastructure. It is important to note that all of the states that have acted thus far, and those working to do so this year or beyond, are doing so in expectation of ongoing federal support. Governors and legislators have acted because states face growing needs and static or falling revenues. The situation has been made worse by federal funding that has remained flat as costs have risen, and could grow disastrously worse should Congress reduce federal support in the upcoming renewal of the national program. Regardless of what happens in Washington, states know that Congress will never appropriate enough support to close the gap needed to address maintenance backlogs and build for the future. Governors and legislators recognize that they can be leaders on this issue, working across party lines, generating new funding mechanisms, and creating new coalitions in support of transportation investment. The strategies and examples discussed in this report are intended to be a helpful guide for those emerging leaders as they navigate the unique context of their own individual states to pass transportation revenue legislation, and in turn, set an example for others to follow in the future

Scaling up Payments for Watershed Services: Recommendations for Increasing Participation in Watershed Conservation Among Non-Industrial Private Forest Landowners in the Sebago Lake Watershed, Maine

Payments for Watershed Services (PWS) programs are receiving attention throughout the U.S. as a policy option to secure water quality in a cost effective manner. PWS programs face many challenges in implementation; prominent among them is designing a program that generates interest and participation among the suppliers of water quality, upstream private landowners. This report seeks to inform the development of a PWS program in Southeast Maine by examining the system of incentives needed to encourage private forest owners to adopt conservation best management practices that enhance water quality downstream. While focused on the Sebago Lake watershed, which provides drinking water for the Greater Portland area, this project approaches the localized study as a specific case to identify biophysical, institutional, economic and social factors that favor or limit the scaling up of PWS schemes. This analysis combines a systematic review of literature on landowner preferences to existing incentive programs, interviews with program administrators from PWS schemes throughout the U.S., and interviews with key stakeholders in Southeast Maine. This report provides a set of recommendations organized around: segmentation of landowners; targeting and positioning PWS programs; selecting attractive program attributes; and leveraging effective outreach channels and tactics. Key recommendations include: co-create program attributes with landowners; encourage peer to peer communication to build support and awareness; provide a portfolio of financial and non-financial incentives to increase interest; and partner with existing conservation organizations to add capabilities and resources.Master of ScienceNatural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/90874/1/scaling_up_watershed_services_2012.pd

Agile and Lean Systems Engineering: Kanban in Systems Engineering

This is the 2nd of two reports that were created for research on this topic funded through SERC. The first report, SERC-TR-032-1 dated March 13, 2012, constituted the 2011-2012 Annual Technical Report and the Final Technical Report of the SERC Research Task RT-6: Software Intensive Systems Data Quality and Estimation Research In Support of Future Defense Cost Analysis. The overall objectives of RT-6 were to use data submitted to DoD in the Software Resources Data Report (SRDR) forms to provide guidance for DoD projects in estimating software costs for future DoD projects. In analyzing the data, the project found variances in productivity data that made such SRDR-based estimates highly variable. The project then performed additional analyses that provided better bases of estimate, but also identified ambiguities in the SRDR data definitions that enabled the project to help the DoD DCARC organization to develop better SRDR data definitions. In SERC-TR-2012-032-1, the resulting Manual provided the guidance elements for software cost estimation performers and users. Several appendices provide further related information on acronyms, sizing, nomograms, work breakdown structures, and references. SERC-TR-2013-032-2 (current report), included the “Software Cost Estimation Metrics Manual.” This constitutes the 2012-2013 Annual Technical Report and the Final Technical Report of the SERC Research Task Order 0024, RT-6: Software Intensive Systems Cost and Schedule Estimation Estimating the cost to develop a software application is different from almost any other manufacturing process. In other manufacturing disciplines, the product is developed once and replicated many times using physical processes. Replication improves physical process productivity (duplicate machines produce more items faster), reduces learning curve effects on people and spreads unit cost over many items. Whereas a software application is a single production item, i.e. every application is unique. The only physical processes are the documentation of ideas, their translation into computer instructions and their validation and verification. Production productivity reduces, not increases, when more people are employed to develop the software application. Savings through replication are only realized in the development processes and on the learning curve effects on the management and technical staff. Unit cost is not reduced by creating the software application over and over again. This manual helps analysts and decision makers develop accurate, easy and quick software cost estimates for different operating environments such as ground, shipboard, air and space. It was developed by the Air Force Cost Analysis Agency (AFCAA) in conjunction with DoD Service Cost Agencies, and assisted by the SERC through involving the University of Southern California and the Naval Postgraduate School. The intent is to improve quality and consistency of estimating methods across cost agencies and program offices through guidance, standardization, and knowledge sharing. The manual consists of chapters on metric definitions, e.g., what is meant by equivalent lines of code, examples of metric definitions from commercially available cost models, the data collection and repository form, guidelines for preparing the data for analysis, analysis results, cost estimating relationships found in the data, productivity benchmarks, future cost estimation challenges and a very large appendix.SERCU.S. Department of DefenseSystems Engineering Research Center (SERC)Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) Contract H98230-08-D-0171

Correlated diffusion of membrane proteins and their effect on membrane viscosity

We extend the Saffman theory of membrane hydrodynamics to account for the correlated motion of membrane proteins, along with the effect of protein concentration on that correlation and on the response of the membrane to stresses. Expressions for the coupling diffusion coefficients of protein pairs and their concentration dependence are derived in the limit of small protein size relative to the inter-protein separation. The additional role of membrane viscosity as determining the characteristic length scale for membrane response leads to unusual concentration effects at large separation -- the transverse coupling increases with protein concentration, whereas the longitudinal one becomes concentration-independent.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure

Corrections to the Saffman-Delbruck mobility for membrane bound proteins

Recent experiments by Y. Gambin et al. [PNAS 103, 2098 (2006)] have called into question the applicability of the Saffman-Delbruck diffusivity for proteins embedded in the lipid bilayers. We present a simple argument to account for this observation that should be generically valid for a large class of transmembrane and membrane bound proteins. Whenever the protein-lipid interactions locally deform the membrane, that deformation generates new hydrodynamic stresses on the protein-membrane complex leading to a suppression of its mobility. We show that this suppression depends on the protein size in a manner consistent with the work of Y. Gambin et al.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur

Prescribing competency assessment for Canadian medical students: a pilot evaluation

Background: The knowledge and ability to prescribe safely and effectively is a core competency for every graduating medical student. Our previous research suggested concerns about medical student prescribing abilities, and interest in a standardized assessment process. Methods: A multi-year cross-sectional study evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, and discriminative ability of an online prescribing competency assessment for final year Canadian medical students was conducted. Students at nine sites of four Ontario medical schools were invited to participate in an online one-hour exam of eight domains related to prescribing safely. Student feedback on perceived fairness, clarity, and ease of use formed the primary outcome. Exam performance and parity between schools were the secondary outcome.  Results: A total of 714 students completed the assessment during spring final review courses between 2016 and 2018. Student feedback was more favourable than not for appropriateness of content (53.5% agreement vs 18.3% disagreement), clarity of questions (65.5% agreement vs 11.6% disagreement), question layout and presentation (70.8% agreement vs 12.2% disagreement), and ease of use of online interface (67.1% agreement vs 13.6% disagreement). Few (23.6% believed their course work had prepared them for the assessment. Mean total exam score was 70.0% overall (SD 10.4%), with 47.6% scoring at or above the pass threshold of 70%. Conclusion: Our prescribing competency assessment proved feasible, acceptable, and discriminative, and indicated a need for better medical school training to improve prescribing competency. Further evaluation in a larger sample of medical schools is warranted