Hierarchical word clustering - automatic thesaurus generation

In this paper, we propose a hierarchical, lexical clustering neural network algorithm that automatically generates a thesaurus (synonym abstraction) using purely stochastic information derived from unstructured text corpora and requiring no prior word classifications. The lexical hierarchy overcomes the Vocabulary Problem by accommodating paraphrasing through using synonym clusters and overcomes Information Overload by focusing search within cohesive clusters. We describe existing word categorisation methodologies, identifying their respective strengths and weaknesses and evaluate our proposed approach against an existing neural approach using a benchmark statistical approach and a human generated thesaurus for comparison. We also evaluate our word context vector generation methodology against two similar approaches to investigate the effect of word vector dimensionality and the effect of the number of words in the context window on the quality of word clusters produced. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and its superiority to existing techniques. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

How Changes in Plant Community Structure Affect Ant Communities

We investigated how change in plant community composition brought about by annual grass-specific herbicide application affects terrestrial arthropod communities, with special emphasis on the mutualists of the endangered Fender’s blue butterfly, Plebejus icarioides fenderi (Family: Lycaenidae). Larvae of this species form facultative mutualisms with ants, who chase away potential predators of the larvae. We used pitfall trapping to compare ant communities between control and herbicide-treated plots through time. The extent to which major changes in plant community composition affect the mutualistic ant community differed among years. Our findings may have relevance for management decisions if the focus of the conservation effort has strong ecological interactions with greatly affected non-target species

A high performance k-NN approach using binary neural networks

This paper evaluates a novel k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) classifier built from binary neural networks. The binary neural approach uses robust encoding to map standard ordinal, categorical and numeric data sets onto a binary neural network. The binary neural network uses high speed pattern matching to recall a candidate set of matching records, which are then processed by a conventional k-NN approach to determine the k-best matches. We compare various configurations of the binary approach to a conventional approach for memory overheads, training speed, retrieval speed and retrieval accuracy. We demonstrate the superior performance with respect to speed and memory requirements of the binary approach compared to the standard approach and we pinpoint the optimal configurations. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Improved AURA k-Nearest Neighbour approach

The k-Nearest Neighbour (kNN) approach is a widely-used technique for pattern classification. Ranked distance measurements to a known sample set determine the classification of unknown samples. Though effective, kNN, like most classification methods does not scale well with increased sample size. This is due to their being a relationship between the unknown query and every other sample in the data space. In order to make this operation scalable, we apply AURA to the kNN problem. AURA is a highly-scalable associative-memory based binary neural-network intended for high-speed approximate search and match operations on large unstructured datasets. Previous work has seen AURA methods applied to this problem as a scalable, but approximate kNN classifier. This paper continues this work by using AURA in conjunction with kernel-based input vectors, in order to create a fast scalable kNN classifier, whilst improving recall accuracy to levels similar to standard kNN implementations

Vacuum Photon Splitting in Lorentz-Violating Quantum Electrodynamics

Radiative corrections arising from Lorentz violation in the fermion sector induce a nonzero amplitude for vacuum photon splitting. At one loop, the on-shell amplitude acquires both CPT-even and CPT-odd contributions forbidden in conventional electrodynamics.Comment: 4 pages, minor wording changes, references added, accepted in Physical Review Letter

Grimstone v Epsom and St. Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust: (it's not) hip to be square

In Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] UKSC 11 the Supreme Court redefined the standard of disclosure in informed consent to medical treatment, rejecting the application of the doctor-focused Bolam standard in favour of one focused on what was significant to patients. In Grimstone v Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust [2015] EWHC 3756 (QB), despite acknowledging a new standard now applied, McGowan J nevertheless used the Bolam test to determine liability for non-disclosure. This illustrates ongoing judicial deference to the medical profession and this case commentary explores that decision and its implication

Katharine Susannah Prichard\u27s Coonardoo : an historical study

The focus of this thesis is Katharine Susannah Prichard\u27s novel, Coonardoo ( 1929), and its capacity to provide a framework for the reconstruction of the historical situation in the North-West region of Western Australia during the period mid-1860s to late 1920s. The thesis has a dual purpose: to contextualise the novel in terms of the historical, political, ideological, and social situation; and to read the novel in ways which reveal its reconstruction of the wider historical context. My approach is a new historicist close reading of the text. Specific events or situations are scrutinised for their power to convey insights into the extra-textual situation. For example, the textualisation of the relationship between the white hero and the Aboriginal heroine leads to an exploration of attitudes to interracial sexual encounters in the period of the novel and in the author\u27s contemporary milieu. Included in this work is an exposition of the various industries which contributed substantially to the economic development of the North-West region. These are treated in some depth in relation to their historical circumstances but with particular reference to textual events and situations. An important area of discussion is the social and economic situation which developed between the European settlers in the North-West and the indigenous population of the region. Particular reference is made to the displacement, subjugation and diaspora of the region\u27s Aboriginal population. The pre-contact cultural and religious practices of the Aborigines of the North-West region, and the extent to which these patterns survived into the author\u27s contemporary period, is investigated in the thesis. An appraisal is made of the author\u27s claim that during her visit to the North-West in 1926, she directly observed the Aboriginal traditional forms represented in Coonardoo. Prichard\u27s own socio-cultural and ideological position is explored in relation to the Aboriginal dimension in the novel. Especially relevant is the author\u27s adherence to the theory of Social Darwinism and to the view, prevalent in her society, that the extinction of the Aborigines was imminent and inevitable. Prichard\u27s novel is the starting point of an investigation into the social, economic and political background of the North-West region during the first sixty years of white settlement. The task of this thesis is to \u27recover\u27 the wider historical situation by reference to documents, journals, memoirs and newspapers of the period