Automatic extraction of Word Combinations from corpora: evaluating methods and benchmarks

We report on three experiments aimed at comparing two popular methods for the automatic extraction of Word Combinations from corpora, with a view to evaluate: i) their efficacy in acquiring data to be included in a combinatory resource for Italian; ii) the impact of different types of benchmarks on the evaluation itself

Small-for-gestational-age fetus diagnosed in the second trimester: Possible etiologies and short-term neonatal outcomes

Introduction: The aim of our study was to investigate the causes of fetal growth <10th centile diagnosed <26 weeks' gestation in singleton pregnancies and compare pregnancy outcomes in relation to the identified etiology. Material and methods: Historical cohort study conducted in two Italian hospitals which included all small-for-gestational-age fetuses diagnosed between 18+0 and 26+0 weeks over a 10-year period. Fetuses were divided into three groups depending on the prenatally suspected etiology: chromosomal abnormalities (Group 1), malformations (Group 2) and isolated (Group 3). These groups were compared regarding pregnancy outcomes. Fetuses in Group 3 were divided into small-for-gestational-age and fetal growth restriction following the Delphi Consensus criteria and the outcomes were further compared. Fisher's Exact or Mann-Whitney test were used for comparison of groups. Results: In all, 435 fetuses were included. Of these, 20 cases (4.6%) were associated with chromosomal abnormalities (Group 1), 98 (22.5%) with fetal malformations (Group 2) and 317 (72.9%) were isolated (Group 3). A higher percentage of live births was reported for Group 3 (P < 0.001). Termination of pregnancy was more common in Group 1 (P < 0.001). No differences in gestational age at delivery, birthweight, intrauterine death or neonatal death were detected within groups. Growth-restricted fetuses had lower gestational age at delivery, birthweight and number of live births (P < 0.001), higher rates of termination of pregnancy, intrauterine death (P < 0.001) and neonatal death <10 days (P = 0.002) compared to small-for-gestational-age. In 17 cases a chromosomal abnormality, genetic syndrome or adverse neurological outcome was diagnosed after birth: six from Group 2 (11.3% of live births in this group) and 11 from Group 3 (4.3%). Conclusions: We report that fetal growth <10th percentile diagnosed before 26 weeks is not isolated before birth in 27% of cases. Malformations and chromosomal abnormalities are common etiologies; therefore, detailed anomaly scans and invasive testing should be offered. In addition, there is a residual risk of neonatal death and postnatal diagnosis of a genetic syndrome or neurodevelopmental impairment despite normal prenatal tests. These results expand the small amount of information on the outcome of cases with very early diagnosis of impaired fetal growth currently available and highlight the importance of detailed counseling with couples

How to harvest Word Combinations from corpora:Methods, evaluation and perspectives

This paper reports on work, carried out in the framework of the CombiNet project, focusing on the automatic extraction of word combinations from large corpora, with a view to represent the full distributional profile of selected lemmas. We describe two extraction methods, based on part-of-speech sequences (P-method) and syntactic patterns (S-method), respectively, evaluating their performance - contrastively, and with reference to external benchmarks - and discussing the relevance of automatic knowledge acquisition for lexicographic purposes. Our results indicate that both approaches provide valuable data and confirm previous claims that P-methods and S-methods are largely complementary, as they tend to retrieve different types of word combinations. In the second part of the paper, we present SYMPAThy, a data representation format devised to fruitfully merge the two methods by leveraging their respective points of strength. In order to explore SYMPAThy's potentialities, a preliminary investigation on a small set of Italian idioms, and specifically their degree of fixedness/productivity, is also described.</p

Práticas que transformam

Este artigo apresenta o relato de atividades terapêuticas fonoaudiológicas que destacam a importância das práticas discursivas, dialógicas, pautadas em referencial histórico-cultural, para o trabalho com a linguagem oral e escrita. O objetivo dos relatos feitos é mostrar que estratégias organizadas, pautadas em escolhas subjetivas de gêneros discursivos diferentes, podem promover a emergência do sujeito de linguagem que inicia o processo terapêutico fonoaudiológico como sujeito patológico. Apresentamos os relatos de quatro crianças, na vivência de dois projetos diferentes (coleção de livros “Eu, autor” e “Painel Interativo”), em que os tempos e relações de cada criança com o outro, consigo e sua linguagem, os diferentes interlocutores discursivos, são subjetivos, mas todos se transformam. Acompanham-nos nessa jornada Bakhtin e Vigotski, em especial, entre outros autores consagrados. Embora sem utilizarmos protocolos formais, as práticas apresentadas podem ser replicadas e evidenciam bons resultados

Automatic extraction of Word Combinations from corpora: evaluating methods and benchmarks

We report on three experiments aimed at comparing two popular methods for the automatic extraction of Word Combinations from corpora, with a view to evaluate: i) their efficacy in acquiring data to be included in a combinatory resource for Italian; ii) the impact of different types of benchmarks on the evaluation itself

Pos-Patterns or Syntax? Comparing Methods for Extracting Word Combinations

This paper reports on work carried out in the framework of an ongoing project aimed at building an online, corpus - based lexicographic resource for Italian Word Combinations. Our aim is to compare two of the most commonly used methods for the automatic extraction of word combinations from corpora, with a view to evaluate their performance – and ultimately their efficacy – with respect to the task of acquiring word combinations for inclusion in the lexi cographi c combinatory resource