How Short is a Piece of String?: the Impact of Text Length and Text Augmentation on Short-text Classification Accuracy

Recent increases in the use and availability of short messages have created opportunities to harvest vast amounts of information through machine-based classification. However, traditional classification methods have failed to yield accuracies comparable to classification accuracies on longer texts. Several approaches have previously been employed to extend traditional methods to overcome this problem, including the enhancement of the original texts through the construction of associations with external data supplementation sources. Existing literature does not precisely describe the impact of text length on classification performance. This work quantitatively examines the changes in accuracy of a small selection of classifiers using a variety of enhancement methods, as text length progressively decreases. Findings, based on ANOVA testing at a 95% confidence interval, suggest that the performance of classifiers using simple enhancements decreases with decreasing text length, but that the use of more sophisticated enhancements risks over-supplementation of the text and consequent concept drift and classification performance decrease as text length increases

Supporting Women In Engineering and Technology Through A Collaborative Practice And Support Network Using Targeted Interventions

Despite ongoing efforts to recruit and retain women in third level engineering programmes in Ireland, there is still a lack of diversity in these programmes with typically fewer than 20% of students being female. This paper will describe the evolution of a female focused university wide network called WITU (Women in Technology United), which aims to retain female students in engineering and technology programmes, and to increase the number of gender minorities coming onto these programmes. It is also a response to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly, SDG 4 (quality education), and SDG 5 (gender equality), and addresses actions highlighted in a recent Athena Swan review in our University. The network was formed in 2020 and extended to become University wide during lockdown, which in itself presented specific challenges. This paper describes the activities of the WITU network which runs events and celebrations for female students on our engineering and technology programmes such as ‘Meet & Greet’ events for incoming year one students, scholarship workshops, coding camps and International Women’s Day celebrations. The events are run collaboratively with students, academics and employer networks, with participation from recent female graduate role models, who are contributing to the wider engineering community. This paper describes these events and their impact on participants. Outcomes and feedback from participants show the critical role of these types of targeted interventions in supporting women and gender minorities and address some of the most pressing global challenges relating to the abovementioned SDGs

Clinical and genetic characteristics of late-onset Huntington's disease

Background: The frequency of late-onset Huntington's disease (>59 years) is assumed to be low and the clinical course milder. However, previous literature on late-onset disease is scarce and inconclusive. Objective: Our aim is to study clinical characteristics of late-onset compared to common-onset HD patients in a large cohort of HD patients from the Registry database. Methods: Participants with late- and common-onset (30–50 years)were compared for first clinical symptoms, disease progression, CAG repeat size and family history. Participants with a missing CAG repeat size, a repeat size of ≤35 or a UHDRS motor score of ≤5 were excluded. Results: Of 6007 eligible participants, 687 had late-onset (11.4%) and 3216 (53.5%) common-onset HD. Late-onset (n = 577) had significantly more gait and balance problems as first symptom compared to common-onset (n = 2408) (P <.001). Overall motor and cognitive performance (P <.001) were worse, however only disease motor progression was slower (coefficient, −0.58; SE 0.16; P <.001) compared to the common-onset group. Repeat size was significantly lower in the late-onset (n = 40.8; SD 1.6) compared to common-onset (n = 44.4; SD 2.8) (P <.001). Fewer late-onset patients (n = 451) had a positive family history compared to common-onset (n = 2940) (P <.001). Conclusions: Late-onset patients present more frequently with gait and balance problems as first symptom, and disease progression is not milder compared to common-onset HD patients apart from motor progression. The family history is likely to be negative, which might make diagnosing HD more difficult in this population. However, the balance and gait problems might be helpful in diagnosing HD in elderly patients