Investigating Retrieval Method Selection with Axiomatic Features

We consider algorithm selection in the context of ad-hoc information retrieval. Given a query and a pair of retrieval methods, we propose a meta-learner that predicts how to combine the methods' relevance scores into an overall relevance score. Inspired by neural models' different properties with regard to IR axioms, these predictions are based on features that quantify axiom-related properties of the query and its top ranked documents. We conduct an evaluation on TREC Web Track data and find that the meta-learner often significantly improves over the individual methods. Finally, we conduct feature and query weight analyses to investigate the meta-learner's behavior

Patent incentives: Returns to patenting and the inducement for research & development (R&D)

The UK has one of the oldest and best regarded intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes in the world. Yet there is little evidence on private returns to patenting for firms operating in the UK, and on the incentive effects of patenting in encouraging R&D investment in patenting firms. Using available data from the UK innovation survey (known as the Community Innovation Survey or CIS) and linked business performance data the report assesses both the additional returns firms achieve by patenting, and the effects on R&D spending. This report tests an economic model built upon the following intuition. The monopoly power conferred by a patent provides a firm a price premium in new product revenue, thus increasing profitability. At the same time this increased profitability also acts as an inducement to increase R&D spending by the firm. Using this idea we try to jointly estimate the extent of the premium and the inducement to R&D. In this way the research builds and extends work in two literature streams, viz. the economic literature on the value of patents and the literature on effect of patents on R&D expenditures

An unusual foreign body of esophagus

We report a rare case of an unusually long foreign body (Datun) impacted in the esophagus of a 56 year-old gentleman. He was literate, without any psychiatric illness and had been using “Neem” (Azadirachta indica) stick for cleaning his teeth for the past twenty years. Neem sticks are used for brushing teeth, perhaps one of the earliest and very effective dental care. On closer questioning he revealed his habit of passing the Neem stick into his throat with the aim of cleaning it too while cleaning his teeth. He presented to our emergency early in the morning with this strange long foreign body impacted in his esophagus which was removed successfully using a Jackson’s adult rigid oesophagoscope. We believe this to be the first case of such an unusually long foreign body to be reported in the literature

Unusual echocardiographic finding leading to diagnosis of pulmonary sequestration

Pulmonary sequestration is an embryonic mass of non- functioning lung tissue that does not communicate with the tracheobronchial tree and has a reported incidence of 0.15%-6.4% of all the pulmonary malformations. This anomaly is classified as either intralobar or extralobar with the later variety lying outside the normal investment of visceral pleura. The arterial supply is predominantly by an anomalous artery usually arising from either abdominal or thoracic aorta, while the venous drainage occurs commonly via systemic rather than pulmonary veins. Identification of the anomalous arterial supply has therapeutic implication because the majority of infants clinically present large shunt lesions attributed to these channels in early infancy. The diagnosis in such cases is usually established by computed tomography (CT), angiography, magnetic resonance angiography and conventional angiography. This article reports a 28 day old neonate who presented with features of large shunt lesion, in which echocardiography was instrumental in the diagnosis of a large collateral supplying the sequestrated lung.peer-reviewe