Arabic Spelling Correction using Supervised Learning

In this work, we address the problem of spelling correction in the Arabic language utilizing the new corpus provided by QALB (Qatar Arabic Language Bank) project which is an annotated corpus of sentences with errors and their corrections. The corpus contains edit, add before, split, merge, add after, move and other error types. We are concerned with the first four error types as they contribute more than 90% of the spelling errors in the corpus. The proposed system has many models to address each error type on its own and then integrating all the models to provide an efficient and robust system that achieves an overall recall of 0.59, precision of 0.58 and F1 score of 0.58 including all the error types on the development set. Our system participated in the QALB 2014 shared task "Automatic Arabic Error Correction" and achieved an F1 score of 0.6, earning the sixth place out of nine participants.Comment: System description paper that is submitted in the EMNLP 2014 conference shared task "Automatic Arabic Error Correction" (Mohit et al., 2014) in the Arabic NLP workshop. 6 page

Brain Weight and Life-Span in Primate Species

In haplorhine primates (tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans), there is a significant correlation between brain weight and maximum life-span when the effect of body size is removed. There is also a significant correlation in haplorhine primates between brain weight and female age at first reproduction. For strepsirhine primates (lorises and lemurs), there are no significant correlations between brain weight and either life-span or female reproductive age when the effect of body size is removed. This lack of correlation in strepsirhine primates may be related to the fact that these primates are nocturnal and/or natives of the island of Madagascar, both of which conditions may reduce competition for resources and predation pressure. These findings suggest that in haplorhine primates the genetic systems controlling brain growth are linked to the systems governing the life cycle so that species with longer cycles have larger brains. When the effect of body weight is removed, leaf-eating haplorhines have significantly smaller brains and shorter lives than haplorhines with other diets. Harem-living haplorhines also have significantly smaller brains and shorter life-spans than troop-living haplorhines when the effect of body weight is removed. We also sought to test the rate-of-living hypothesis by determining whether primates with basal metabolic rates that are higher than would be expected for their body size have shorter maximum life-spans than would be expected for their body size. Metabolic rate is not correlated with life-span or female age at first reproduction when the effect of body size is removed

The Early Restart Algorithm

Consider an algorithm whose time to convergence is unknown (because of some random element in the algorithm, such as a random initial weight choice for neural network training). Consider the following strategy. Run the algorithm for a specific time T. If it has not converged by time T, cut the run short and rerun it from the start (repeat the same strategy for every run). This so-called restart mechanism has been proposed by Fahlman (1988) in the context of backpropagation training. It is advantageous in problems that are prone to local minima or when there is a large variability in convergence time from run to run, and may lead to a speed-up in such cases. In this article, we analyze theoretically the restart mechanism, and obtain conditions on the probability density of the convergence time for which restart will improve the expected convergence time. We also derive the optimal restart time. We apply the derived formulas to several cases, including steepest-descent algorithms

An analog feedback associative memory

A method for the storage of analog vectors, i.e., vectors whose components are real-valued, is developed for the Hopfield continuous-time network. An important requirement is that each memory vector has to be an asymptotically stable (i.e. attractive) equilibrium of the network. Some of the limitations imposed by the continuous Hopfield model on the set of vectors that can be stored are pointed out. These limitations can be relieved by choosing a network containing visible as well as hidden units. An architecture consisting of several hidden layers and a visible layer, connected in a circular fashion, is considered. It is proved that the two-layer case is guaranteed to store any number of given analog vectors provided their number does not exceed 1 + the number of neurons in the hidden layer. A learning algorithm that correctly adjusts the locations of the equilibria and guarantees their asymptotic stability is developed. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the approach

HomeWorks : maintaining your housing investment (1999)

"Housing.""Information from Human Environmental Sciences Extension.""This publication was adapted, with permission, from 'After the Purchase : A Home for Your Family,' by Sarah Kirby, Extension Housing Specialist, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service."New 3/99/5M

Family medicine and primary health care: the role of undergraduate training on current practices and future considerations of junior doctors in South Africa

Research Report For Masters of Public Health 30 March 2015Introduction: The South African government recently began the implementation of the new National Health Insurance (NHI) and Re-engineering of Primary Health Care (PHC) policy proposals (green paper) in order to achieve universal health coverage and health equity. One of the vital aspects of these policy proposals is the recruitment and retention of doctors within PHC in the public sector. This study therefore aims to examine the training, current practices and future intentions of doctors completing community service in 2010, 2011 and 2012 in order to ascertain which factors may be associated with employment in PHC. Methodology: The study was designed as a cross sectional study with an analytical component. Doctors in the cohorts of interest were contacted via email and requested to fill in an anonymous self-administered online survey. Univariate analysis was done to describe socio-demographic characteristics, current employment status and future intentions. Bivariate analysis was done to examine any associations between exposure to family medicine and PHC during undergraduate training, internship and community service, and employment in PHC. Results: The database yielded a sample of 350 doctors, of which 61 responded. Of the respondents, 35.59% worked as a private general practitioner whilst 11.86% work in public PHC. The study showed no statistically significant association between exposure to family medicine and PHC and employment in PHC but female gender was the socio-demographic variable found to be associated with PHC employment (p=0.02). Factors that deterred doctors from pursuing a specialization in family medicine were related to employment conditions such as poor resources and under staffing and not to factors related to the specialty itself such as an unchallenging scope of work or poor professional perception of the specialty. Conclusion: Whilst the study showed no association between exposure to family medicine and PHC and career choices in that field, it has highlighted that the conditions within the public service are the biggest deterrent to doctors. Thus whilst medical school admissions should aim to increase the number of students with characteristics positively associated with PHC employment such as female gender, it is important that the Department of Health in South Africa aims to Mosam, Atiya. 0003032K. MPH 2015 ensure that the conditions within the public service are optimized in order to recruit and retain as many doctors as possible in light of the human resource requirements of the new policy

Cybersecurity Scenario Modeling: Imagining the Black Swans for Digital Infrastructures Risk Management

The term “digital infrastructures” is used to refer to one or more of a combination of IoT and its artifacts, the cloud, cyber-physical systems, and digitized business architectures. As digital infrastructures become increasingly complex and interdependent, impacts from disruptive events have the potential to be more harmful than mere inconveniences and financial losses. The risk from these catastrophic events to digital infrastructures may leave many organizations unprepared. To predict so-called “Black Swan Events to increasingly complex digital infrastructures this research in progress postulates that risk management activities should be conducted outside of existing frameworks. In this paper, we argue that qualitative scenario risk modeling exercises utilizing diverse stakeholders may become even more important than other types of risk analysis in the prediction of threats to digital infrastructures. We discuss the importance of diverse stakeholders in developing structured, qualitative, scenario models to predict Black Swan Events to digital infrastructures. We discuss potential issues and solutions for the cataloging and quantification of the use cases developed from qualitative event scenario modeling and the next steps for this research