Grounding event references in news

Events are frequently discussed in natural language, and their accurate identification is central to language understanding. Yet they are diverse and complex in ontology and reference; computational processing hence proves challenging. News provides a shared basis for communication by reporting events. We perform several studies into news event reference. One annotation study characterises each news report in terms of its update and topic events, but finds that topic is better consider through explicit references to background events. In this context, we propose the event linking task which—analogous to named entity linking or disambiguation—models the grounding of references to notable events. It defines the disambiguation of an event reference as a link to the archival article that first reports it. When two references are linked to the same article, they need not be references to the same event. Event linking hopes to provide an intuitive approximation to coreference, erring on the side of over-generation in contrast with the literature. The task is also distinguished in considering event references from multiple perspectives over time. We diagnostically evaluate the task by first linking references to past, newsworthy events in news and opinion pieces to an archive of the Sydney Morning Herald. The intensive annotation results in only a small corpus of 229 distinct links. However, we observe that a number of hyperlinks targeting online news correspond to event links. We thus acquire two large corpora of hyperlinks at very low cost. From these we learn weights for temporal and term overlap features in a retrieval system. These noisy data lead to significant performance gains over a bag-of-words baseline. While our initial system can accurately predict many event links, most will require deep linguistic processing for their disambiguation

Unhomely

As winter’s dusk encroaches on The Rocks, under the shadowy reach of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, anonymous and unnoticed by the lively crowds, the shutters open, and the blank upper windows flash alive in vacant Reynold’s Cottage. Through the unraveling night the cottage innards twist and flutter, spit and ooze with glimpses of disarray, despair and turmoil, the windows spirit-lenses on the turbulent world of mid-twentieth century Sydney

Treatment Outcomes of Patients With Multidrug-Resistant and Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis According to Drug Susceptibility Testing to First- and Second-line Drugs: An Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis

The clinical validity of drug susceptibility testing (DST) for pyrazinamide, ethambutol, and second-line antituberculosis drugs is uncertain. In an individual patient data meta-analysis of 8955 patients with confirmed multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, DST results for these drugs were associated with treatment outcome

Twee Nederlandse kinderen met een tuberculeuze meningitis.

Contains fulltext : 51116.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Impact of new American Thoracic Society diagnostic criteria on management of nontuberculous mycobacterial infection.

Contains fulltext : 52926.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Hypersensitivity pneumonitis caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. hominissuis in a hot tub, as proven by IS1245 RFLP and rep-PCR typing

Contains fulltext : 108179.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Disseminated Mycobacterium gordonae infection in a renal transplant recipient.

Item does not contain fulltextThe use of more intensive immunosuppressive regimens and the increasing number of patients that are exposed to immunosuppressive strategies in transplantation medicine have changed the spectrum of infections that is encountered by the clinician. We describe a 62-year-old female renal transplant recipient receiving immunosuppressive therapy who developed complaints of weight loss, diarrhoea, cough, and fever. Increased C-reactive protein and pancytopenia were found. The presence of Mycobacterium gordonae, a non-tuberculous mycobacterium, was eventually demonstrated in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, bone marrow, spleen, and liver. Determination of the pathogen was accelerated using a Line Probe Assay, a reverse hybridisation technique using an RNA fragment specific for different mycobacterium species. Treatment was initiated using a combination of clarithromycin, ethambutol, and rifampicin. The initial response to treatment was good, but splenectomy and change of immunosuppressive and antimycobacterial therapy were necessary for long-term control of the infection. Problems in the diagnosis and treatment of this uncommon pathogen are discussed

Clinical relevance of Mycobacterium malmoense isolation in The Netherlands.

Contains fulltext : 79656.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Uncertainty exists about the clinical relevance of Mycobacterium malmoense isolation, especially in pulmonary samples. We therefore determined clinical relevance, treatment and outcome of M. malmoense isolation in The Netherlands. A retrospective medical file study was conducted for all patients in The Netherlands from whom Mycobacterium malmoense had been isolated between January 2002 and January 2006. Diagnostic criteria for nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) disease published by the American Thoracic Society (ATS) were used to determine clinical relevance. Treatment was compared with guidelines published by the British Thoracic Society. In total, 51 patients were found from whom M. malmoense was isolated. Of these, 40 (78%) patients had pulmonary isolates and 32 (80%) of them met the ATS diagnostic criteria. Cavitary disease was most common (n = 28; 88%). Patients with pulmonary disease were mostly males, with an average age of 56 yrs and pre-existing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Cervical lymphadenitis was the most common extrapulmonary disease type. Adherence to treatment guidelines was poor. A good clinical response to treatment was observed in 70% and 73% of patients treated for pulmonary and extrapulmonary disease, respectively. In conclusion, M. malmoense is a clinically highly relevant NTM in The Netherlands causing serious pulmonary morbidity. Adherence to treatment guidelines is not satisfactory

[Characteristics and treatment of tuberculosis patients in Dekkerswald, 2000-2005]

Contains fulltext : 69331.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)OBJECTIVE: To describe the patient population in Dekkerswald, Nijmegen, one of two tuberculosis (TB) centres in The Netherlands. DESIGN: Descriptive, retrospective study. METHOD: Examination of medical records for all TB patients hospitalised between 2000 and 2005, including demographic, social, clinical and follow-up data. RESULTS: Data from 166 patients were analysed. Tertiary referrals accounted for 98% of all hospitalisations. Most patients (68%) were referred for clinical reasons, and 32% were referred for social reasons. Drug resistance was encountered in 23% of patients; 9% had multidrug-resistant TB. Ten percent of patients were seropositive for HIV. Toxicity and side-effects of treatment often led to changes in treatment (40%). Patients had pulmonary TB (59%), extrapulmonary TB (23%) or both (17%). Overall, 141 patients (85%) completed treatment. The TB-related mortality rate was 5%. CONCLUSION: In Dekkerswald, there is a selected patient population that is characterised by drug-resistance, comorbidity, side-effects, extrapulmonary disease and social issues. Due to the low prevalence of TB in The Netherlands, knowledge and experience regarding complex types of TB are limited. Centralisation of patient care is important to preserve and optimise this expertise