Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Towards a multisensory augmented reality map for blind and low vision people: A participatory design approach

International audienceCurrent low-tech Orientation & Mobility (O&M) tools for visually impaired people, e.g. tactile maps, possess limitations. Interactive accessible maps have been developed to overcome these. However, most of them are limited to exploration of existing maps, and have remained in laboratories. Using a participatory design approach, we have worked closely with 15 visually impaired students and 3 O&M instructors over 6 months. We iteratively designed and developed an augmented reality map destined at use in O&M classes in special education centers. This prototype combines projection, audio output and use of tactile tokens, and thus allows both map exploration and construction by low vision and blind people. Our user study demonstrated that all students were able to successfully use the prototype, and showed a high user satisfaction. A second phase with 22 international special education teachers allowed us to gain more qualitative insights. This work shows that augmented reality has potential for improving the access to education for visually impaired people

Measurement of J/Ψ production in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV

The production of J/psi mesons in proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV is studied with the LHCb detector at the LHC. The differential cross-section for prompt J/psi production is measured as a function of the J/psi transverse momentum p(T) and rapidity y in the fiducial region p(T) is an element of [0; 14] GeV/c and y is an element of [2.0; 4.5]. The differential cross-section and fraction of J/psi from b-hadron decays are also measured in the same p(T) and y ranges. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.2 pb(-1). The measured cross-sections integrated over the fiducial region are 10.52 +/- 0.04 +/- 1.40(-2.20)(+1.64) mu b for prompt J/psi production and 1.14 +/- 0.01 +/- 0.16 mu b for J/psi from b-hadron decays, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The prompt J/psi production cross-section is obtained assuming no J/psi polarisation and the third error indicates the acceptance uncertainty due to this assumption

Scaling-up fire

The role of combustion research in fire safety is revisited through the process of Scaling-Up fire. Scaling-Up fire requires the adequate definition of all the building blocks and couplings associated with the construction of a fire model. The model then has to deliver predictions of the evolution of a fire and its environment with the precision, completeness and robustness relevant to fire safety. Areas of combustion research relevant to the development of fire models emerge from an assessment of methodology, complexity, incompatibility and uncertainty associated to the Scaling-Up process