Evaluating automatic LFG f-structure annotation for the Penn-II treebank

Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG: Kaplan and Bresnan, 1982; Bresnan, 2001; Dalrymple, 2001) f-structures represent abstract syntactic information approximating to basic predicate-argument-modifier (dependency) structure or simple logical form (van Genabith and Crouch, 1996; Cahill et al., 2003a) . A number of methods have been developed (van Genabith et al., 1999a,b, 2001; Frank, 2000; Sadler et al., 2000; Frank et al., 2003) for automatically annotating treebank resources with LFG f-structure information. Until recently, however, most of this work on automatic f-structure annotation has been applied only to limited data sets, so while it may have shown lsquoproof of conceptrsquo, it has not yet demonstrated that the techniques developed scale up to much larger data sets. More recent work (Cahill et al., 2002a,b) has presented efforts in evolving and scaling techniques established in these previous papers to the full Penn-II Treebank (Marcus et al., 1994). In this paper, we present a number of quantitative and qualitative evaluation experiments which provide insights into the effectiveness of the techniques developed to automatically derive a set of f-structures for the more than 1,000,000 words and 49,000 sentences of Penn-II. Currently we obtain 94.85% Precision, 95.4% Recall and 95.09% F-Score for preds-only f-structures against a manually encoded gold standard

The ocean sampling day consortium

Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapshot of the marine microbial biodiversity and function of the world’s oceans. It is a simultaneous global mega-sequencing campaign aiming to generate the largest standardized microbial data set in a single day. This will be achievable only through the coordinated efforts of an Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, supportive partnerships and networks between sites. This commentary outlines the establishment, function and aims of the Consortium and describes our vision for a sustainable study of marine microbial communities and their embedded functional traits

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The Ocean Sampling Day Consortium

Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapshot of the marine microbial biodiversity and function of the world’s oceans. It is a simultaneous global mega-sequencing campaign aiming to generate the largest standardized microbial data set in a single day. This will be achievable only through the coordinated efforts of an Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, supportive partnerships and networks between sites. This commentary outlines the establishment, function and aims of the Consortium and describes our vision for a sustainable study of marine microbial communities and their embedded functional traits

Seasonal and interannual variation in the phytoplankton community in the north east of Scotland

In 1997 a monitoring site was established 5 km offshore from Stonehaven (56° 57.8′ N, 02° 06.2′ W) in the north east of Scotland to examine the effects of physical and chemical parameters on the plankton community in this region. Analysis of the first 10 years of data show that, in common with trends in the NE Atlantic, there was an increasing trend in temperature and salinity at the site. Nutrients were typical of unimpacted waters in this region, with nitrate being the main limiting nutrient over the summer months. The phytoplankton community composition showed strong seasonality with low phytoplankton biomass in the winter, diatoms dominating in spring and early summer and dinoflagellates appearing in mid to late summer. Two different regimes were recognised: from 1997–2000 and 2005–2006, where the chlorophyll concentration peaked in the early part of the year (mid month values ranging from 2.6–4.1 μg l− 1) and a period from 2001–2004 where chlorophyll mid month values did not exceed 2.5 μg l− 1. A decreasing trend in the abundance of dinoflagellates, including members of the genus Ceratium, was observed from 2003–2006. In addition, from 1997–2001, the diatom genus Chaetoceros was the dominant species in the spring bloom, but post 2001 Skeletonema spp. became more abundant. The study highlights the variability that exists in time series data and emphasises the need for long term time series to determine the long term trends and impacts of the phytoplankton community on the marine ecosystem

Using Medical Student Quality Improvement Projects to Promote Evidence-Based Care in the Emergency Department

Introduction The Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) initiative for Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency includes as an element of Entrustable Professional Activity 13 to “identify system failures and contribute to a culture of safety and improvement.” We set out to determine the feasibility of using medical students’ action learning projects (ALPs) to expedite implementation of evidence-based pathways for three common patient diagnoses in the emergency department (ED) setting (Atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and pulmonary embolism). Methods These prospective quality improvement (QI) initiatives were performed over six months in three Northeastern PA hospitals. Emergency physician mentors were recruited to facilitate a QI experience for third-year medical students for each project. Six students were assigned to each mentor and given class time and network infrastructure support (information technology, consultant experts in lean management) to work on their projects. Students had access to background network data that revealed potential for improvement in disposition (home) for patients. Results Under the leadership of their mentors, students accomplished standard QI processes such as performing the background literature search and assessing key stakeholders’ positions that were involved in the respective patient’s care. Students effectively developed flow diagrams, computer aids for clinicians and educational programs, and participated in recruiting champions for the new practice standard. They met with other departmental clinicians to determine barriers to implementation and used this feedback to help set specific parameters to make clinicians more comfortable with the changes in practice that were recommended. All three clinical practice guidelines were initiated at consummation of the students’ projects. After implementation, 86% (38/44) of queried ED providers felt comfortable with medical students being a part of future ED QI initiatives, and 84% (26/31) of the providers who recalled communicating with students on these projects felt they were effective. Conclusion Using this novel technique of aligning small groups of medical students with seasoned mentors, it is feasible for medical students to learn important aspects of QI implementation and allows for their engagement to more efficiently move evidence-based medicine from the literature to the bedside

Using Medical Student Quality Improvement Projects to Promote Evidence-Based Care in the Emergency Department

Introduction: The Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) initiative for Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency includes as an element of Entrustable Professional Activity 13 to “identify system failures and contribute to a culture of safety and improvement.” We set out to determine the feasibility of using medical students’ action learning projects (ALPs) to expedite implementation of evidence-based pathways for three common patient diagnoses in the emergency department (ED) setting (Atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and pulmonary embolism).Methods: These prospective quality improvement (QI) initiatives were performed over six months in three Northeastern PA hospitals. Emergency physician mentors were recruited to facilitate a QI experience for third-year medical students for each project. Six students were assigned to each mentor and given class time and network infrastructure support (information technology, consultant experts in lean management) to work on their projects. Students had access to background network data that revealed potential for improvement in disposition (home) for patients.Results: Under the leadership of their mentors, students accomplished standard QI processes such as performing the background literature search and assessing key stakeholders’ positions that were involved in the respective patient’s care. Students effectively developed flow diagrams, computer aids for clinicians and educational programs, and participated in recruiting champions for the new practice standard. They met with other departmental clinicians to determine barriers to implementation and used this feedback to help set specific parameters to make clinicians more comfortable with the changes in practice that were recommended. All three clinical practice guidelines were initiated at consummation of the students’ projects. After implementation, 86% (38/44) of queried ED providers felt comfortable with medical students being a part of future ED QI initiatives, and 84% (26/31) of the providers who recalled communicating with students on these projects felt they were effective.Conclusion: Using this novel technique of aligning small groups of medical students with seasoned mentors, it is feasible for medical students to learn important aspects of QI implementation and allows for their engagement to more efficiently move evidence-based medicine from the literature to the bedside.[West J Emerg Med. 2017;19(1)–0.

Using Medical Student Quality Improvement Projects to Promote Evidence-Based Care in the Emergency Department.

Introduction: The Association of American Medical Colleges\u27 (AAMC) initiative for Core Entrustable Professional Activities for Entering Residency includes as an element of Entrustable Professional Activity 13 to identify system failures and contribute to a culture of safety and improvement. We set out to determine the feasibility of using medical students\u27 action learning projects (ALPs) to expedite implementation of evidence-based pathways for three common patient diagnoses in the emergency department (ED) setting (Atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, and pulmonary embolism). Methods: These prospective quality improvement (QI) initiatives were performed over six months in three Northeastern PA hospitals. Emergency physician mentors were recruited to facilitate a QI experience for third-year medical students for each project. Six students were assigned to each mentor and given class time and network infrastructure support (information technology, consultant experts in lean management) to work on their projects. Students had access to background network data that revealed potential for improvement in disposition (home) for patients. Results: Under the leadership of their mentors, students accomplished standard QI processes such as performing the background literature search and assessing key stakeholders\u27 positions that were involved in the respective patient\u27s care. Students effectively developed flow diagrams, computer aids for clinicians and educational programs, and participated in recruiting champions for the new practice standard. They met with other departmental clinicians to determine barriers to implementation and used this feedback to help set specific parameters to make clinicians more comfortable with the changes in practice that were recommended. All three clinical practice guidelines were initiated at consummation of the students\u27 projects. After implementation, 86% (38/44) of queried ED providers felt comfortable with medical students being a part of future ED QI initiatives, and 84% (26/31) of the providers who recalled communicating with students on these projects felt they were effective. Conclusion: Using this novel technique of aligning small groups of medical students with seasoned mentors, it is feasible for medical students to learn important aspects of QI implementation and allows for their engagement to more efficiently move evidence-based medicine from the literature to the bedside