Legal and Political Stance Detection of SCOTUS Language

We analyze publicly available US Supreme Court documents using automated stance detection. In the first phase of our work, we investigate the extent to which the Court's public-facing language is political. We propose and calculate two distinct ideology metrics of SCOTUS justices using oral argument transcripts. We then compare these language-based metrics to existing social scientific measures of the ideology of the Supreme Court and the public. Through this cross-disciplinary analysis, we find that justices who are more responsive to public opinion tend to express their ideology during oral arguments. This observation provides a new kind of evidence in favor of the attitudinal change hypothesis of Supreme Court justice behavior. As a natural extension of this political stance detection, we propose the more specialized task of legal stance detection with our new dataset SC-stance, which matches written opinions to legal questions. We find competitive performance on this dataset using language adapters trained on legal documents.Comment: Natural Legal Language Processing Workshop at EMNLP 202

Towards Countering Essentialism through Social Bias Reasoning

Essentialist beliefs (i.e., believing that members of the same group are fundamentally alike) play a central role in social stereotypes and can lead to harm when left unchallenged. In our work, we conduct exploratory studies into the task of countering essentialist beliefs (e.g., ``liberals are stupid''). Drawing on prior work from psychology and NLP, we construct five types of counterstatements and conduct human studies on the effectiveness of these different strategies. Our studies also investigate the role in choosing a counterstatement of the level of explicitness with which an essentialist belief is conveyed. We find that statements that broaden the scope of a stereotype (e.g., to other groups, as in ``conservatives can also be stupid'') are the most popular countering strategy. We conclude with a discussion of challenges and open questions for future work in this area (e.g., improving factuality, studying community-specific variation) and we emphasize the importance of work at the intersection of NLP and psychology.Comment: Workshop on NLP for Positive Impact @ EMNLP 202

ATOMIC: An Atlas of Machine Commonsense for If-Then Reasoning

We present ATOMIC, an atlas of everyday commonsense reasoning, organized through 877k textual descriptions of inferential knowledge. Compared to existing resources that center around taxonomic knowledge, ATOMIC focuses on inferential knowledge organized as typed if-then relations with variables (e.g., "if X pays Y a compliment, then Y will likely return the compliment"). We propose nine if-then relation types to distinguish causes vs. effects, agents vs. themes, voluntary vs. involuntary events, and actions vs. mental states. By generatively training on the rich inferential knowledge described in ATOMIC, we show that neural models can acquire simple commonsense capabilities and reason about previously unseen events. Experimental results demonstrate that multitask models that incorporate the hierarchical structure of if-then relation types lead to more accurate inference compared to models trained in isolation, as measured by both automatic and human evaluation.Comment: AAAI 2019 C

Penguins Don't Fly: Reasoning about Generics through Instantiations and Exceptions

Generics express generalizations about the world (e.g., birds can fly) that are not universally true (e.g., newborn birds and penguins cannot fly). Commonsense knowledge bases, used extensively in NLP, encode some generic knowledge but rarely enumerate such exceptions and knowing when a generic statement holds or does not hold true is crucial for developing a comprehensive understanding of generics. We present a novel framework informed by linguistic theory to generate exemplars -- specific cases when a generic holds true or false. We generate ~19k exemplars for ~650 generics and show that our framework outperforms a strong GPT-3 baseline by 12.8 precision points. Our analysis highlights the importance of linguistic theory-based controllability for generating exemplars, the insufficiency of knowledge bases as a source of exemplars, and the challenges exemplars pose for the task of natural language inference.Comment: EACL 202

Low resting metabolic rate in exercise-associated amenorrhea is not due to a reduced proportion of highly active metabolic tissue compartments

Exercising women with menstrual disturbances frequently display a low resting metabolic rate (RMR) when RMR is expressed relative to body size or lean mass. However, normalizing RMR for body size or lean mass does not account for potential differences in the size of tissue compartments with varying metabolic activities. To explore whether the apparent RMR suppression in women with exercise-associated amenorrhea is a consequence of a lower proportion of highly active metabolic tissue compartments or the result of metabolic adaptations related to energy conservation at the tissue level, RMR and metabolic tissue compartments were compared among exercising women with amenorrhea (AMEN; n = 42) and exercising women with eumenorrheic, ovulatory menstrual cycles (OV; n = 37). RMR was measured using indirect calorimetry and predicted from the size of metabolic tissue compartments as measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). Measured RMR was lower than DEXA-predicted RMR in AMEN (1,215 ± 31 vs. 1,327 ± 18 kcal/day, P \u3c 0.001) but not in OV (1,284 ± 24 vs. 1,252 ± 17, P \u3c 0.16), resulting in a lower ratio of measured to DEXA-predicted RMR in AMEN (91 ± 2%) vs. OV (103 ± 2%, P \u3c 0.001). AMEN displayed proportionally more residual mass (P \u3c 0.001) and less adipose tissue (P = 0.003) compared with OV. A lower ratio of measured to DXA-predicted RMR was associated with lower serum total triiodothyronine (ρ = 0.38, P \u3c 0.001) and leptin (ρ = 0.32, P = 0.004). Our findings suggest that RMR suppression in this population is not the result of a reduced size of highly active metabolic tissue compartments but is due to metabolic and endocrine adaptations at the tissue level that are indicative of energy conservation

Current and past menstrual status is an important determinant of femoral neck geometry in exercising women

Menstrual status, both past and current, has been established as an important determinant of bone mineral density (BMD) in young exercising women. However, little is known regarding the association between the cumulative effect of menstrual status and indices of bone health beyond BMD, such as bone geometry and estimated bone strength. Purpose: This study explores the association between cumulative menstrual status and indices of bone health assessed using dualenergy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), including femoral neck geometry and strength and areal BMD (aBMD), in exercising women. Methods: 101 exercising women (22.0 ± 0.4 years, BMI 21.0 ± 0.2 kg/m2, 520±40 min/week of self-reported exercise) participated in this cross-sectional study. Women were divided into three groups as follows based on their self-reported current and past menstrual status: 1) current and past regular menstrual cycles (C + P-R) (n=23), 2) current and past irregular menstrual cycles (C+P-IR) (n=56), 3) and current or past irregular cycles (C/P-RIR) (n=22). Current menstrual status was confirmed using daily urinary metabolites of reproductive hormones. DXA was used to assess estimates of femoral neck geometry and strength from hip strength analysis (HSA), aBMD, and body composition. Cross-sectional moment of inertia (CSMI), cross-sectional area (CSA), strength index (SI), diameter, and section modulus (Z) were calculated at the femoral neck. Low CSMI, CSA, SI, diameter, and Z were operationally defined as values below the median. Areal BMD (g/cm2) and Z-scores were determined at the lumbar spine, femoral neck, and total hip. Low BMD was defined as a Z-score \u3c −1.0. Chi-square tests and multivariable logistic regression were performed to compare the prevalence and determine the odds, respectively, of low bone geometry, strength, and aBMD among groups. Results: Cumulative menstrual status was identified as a significant predictor of low femoral neck CSMI (p = 0.005), CSA (p ≤ 0.024), and diameter (p = 0.042) after controlling for confounding variables. C + P-IR or C/PRIR were four to eight times more likely to exhibit low femoral neck CSMI or CSA when compared with C + PR. Lumbar spine aBMD and Z-score were lower in C + P-IR when compared with C + P-R (p ≤ 0.003). A significant association between menstrual group and low aBMD was observed at the lumbar spine (p = 0.006) but not at the femoral neck or total hip (p \u3e 0.05). However, after controlling for confounding variables, cumulative menstrual status was not a significant predictor of low aBMD. Conclusion: In exercising women, the cumulative effect of current and past menstrual irregularity appears to be an important predictor of lower estimates of femoral neck geometry, as observed by smaller CSMI and CSA, which may serve as an another means, beyond BMD, by which menstrual irregularity compromises bone strength. As such, evaluation of both current and past menstrual status is recommended to determine potential risk for relatively small bone geometry at the femoral neck

Randomised Controlled Trial of the Effects of Increased Energy Intake on Menstrual Recovery in Exercising Women with Menstrual Disturbances: The ‘REFUEL’ Study

STUDY QUESTION Does increased daily energy intake lead to menstrual recovery in exercising women with oligomenorrhoea (Oligo) or amenorrhoea (Amen)? SUMMARY ANSWER A modest increase in daily energy intake (330 ± 65 kcal/day; 18 ± 4%) is sufficient to induce menstrual recovery in exercising women with Oligo/Amen. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Optimal energy availability is critical for normal reproductive function, but the magnitude of increased energy intake necessary for menstrual recovery in exercising women, along with the associated metabolic changes, is not known. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION The REFUEL study (trial # NCT00392873) is the first randomised controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of 12 months of increased energy intake on menstrual function in 76 exercising women with menstrual disturbances. Participants were randomised (block method) to increase energy intake 20–40% above baseline energy needs (Oligo/Amen + Cal, n = 40) or maintain energy intake (Oligo/Amen Control, n = 36). The study was performed from 2006 to 2014. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS Participants were Amen and Oligo exercising women (age = 21.0 ± 0.3 years, BMI = 20.8 ± 0.2 kg/m2, body fat = 24.7 ± 0.6%) recruited from two universities. Detailed assessment of menstrual function was performed using logs and measures of daily urinary ovarian steroids. Body composition and metabolic outcomes were assessed every 3 months. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE Using an intent-to-treat analysis, the Oligo/Amen + Cal group was more likely to experience menses during the intervention than the Oligo/Amen Control group (P = 0.002; hazard ratio [CI] = 1.91 [1.27, 2.89]). In the intent-to-treat analysis, the Oligo/Amen + Cal group demonstrated a greater increase in energy intake, body weight, percent body fat and total triiodothyronine (TT3) compared to the Oligo/Amen Control group (P \u3c 0.05). In a subgroup analysis where n = 22 participants were excluded (ambiguous baseline menstrual cycle, insufficient time in intervention for menstrual recovery classification), 64% of the Oligo/Amen + Cal group exhibited improved menstrual function compared with 19% in the Oligo/Amen Control group (χ2, P = 0.001). LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION While we had a greater than expected dropout rate for the 12-month intervention, it was comparable to other shorter interventions of 3–6 months in duration. Menstrual recovery defined herein does not account for quality of recovery. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS Expanding upon findings in shorter, non-randomised studies, a modest increase in daily energy intake (330 ± 65 kcal/day; 18 ± 4%) is sufficient to induce menstrual recovery in exercising women with Oligo/Amen. Improved metabolism, as demonstrated by a modest increase in body weight (4.9%), percent body fat (13%) and TT3 (16%), was associated with menstrual recovery. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S) This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense: U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command (Grant PR054531). Additional research assistance provided by the Penn State Clinical Research Center was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translation Sciences, National Institutes of Health, through Grant UL1 TR002014. M.P.O. was supported in part by the Loretta Anne Rogers Chair in Eating Disorders at University of Toronto and University Health Network. All authors report no conflict of interest. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER NCT00392873 TRIAL REGISTRATION DATE October 2006 DATE OF FIRST PATIENT’S ENROLMENT September 200