ASKMi: A Japanese Question Answering System based on Semantic Role Analysis

This paper introduces a Japanese question answering system called ASKMi (Answer Seeker/Knowledge Miner). We describe its system components with an emphasis on the Question Analyzer, which performs Sematic Role Analysis for answer type recognition, query expansion and document constraint generation. Semantic Role Analysis is a rule-based, language-independent technique for mapping textual fragments to arbitrary labels which we call semantic roles. To our knowledge, ASKMi is the first Japanese QA system that can perform query expansion and document constraint generation depending on what the answer types are. We are currently participating at the second Japanese QA track (NTCIR-4 QAC2), and this paper includes preliminary evaluations using the first standard Japanese QA test collection called QAC1. The Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR) of ASKMi is currently around 0.5-0.7, which suggests that it is a competitive system

Assessing prognostic factors correlating with response to nintedanib for connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease: A real-world single-center study.

Objective:For patients with connective tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD), early medical intervention would be desirable. This study analyzed the real-world, single-center use of nintedanib for CTD-ILD patients.Methods:Patients with CTD who received nintedanib from January 2020 to July 2022 were enrolled. Medical records review and stratified analyses of the collected data were conducted.Results:Reduction in the percentage of predicted forced vital capacity (%FVC) was seen in the elderly group (>70 years; P = .210), males (P = .027), the late group who started nintedanib >80 months after confirmation of an ILD disease activity (P = .03), the severe %DLco (diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide as a percentage of predicted) group (35%), and the low-dose group (nintedanib 50-100 mg/d; P = .40). %FVC did not decrease by >5% in the young group (70 years old, male, 35% areas of pulmonary fibrosis)