Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Influence of Homogenization and Micro/Nano Source of Starting Powders on Format Ion of the Single YAP Phase

Manufacturing high purity polycrystalline YAlO3 (YAP) ceramics could replace monocrystalline YAP thus recently it is an interesting task for low cost producers of scintillators. The paper presents influence of different source of initial oxide powders (micro/nano powders of Y2O3 and Al2O3) and the method of their homogenization on the formation of a YAP phase. The solid state reaction method was used to prepare YAP powder or ceramic pellets. After preheating, all samples in the form of powders and pellets were heat-treated in the temperature range of 1050-1650 °C. DTA method was applied for examination of the phase crystallization in the tested system. X-ray diffraction method (XRD) was used for characterization of the phase composition. X-ray microanalysis (EDS) was used to control homogeneity in the small areas. Morphology of the resultant samples are presented on SEM pictures. The results show a significant influence of the starting powders on the homogeneity, purity and temperature of formation of the main phase

Zastosowanie procesu aktywacji mechanochemicznej do syntezy oranatu itrowo-olinowego domieszkowanego cerem

The paper presents the method of preparation YAG: Ce precursor powder with ability for synthesis at lower temperature. Mechanochemical processing of an initial powder mixture was used as a preliminary step for subsequent high-temperature treatment of the precursor. The specific surface area, phase composition and luminescence properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. It has been shown that YAG structure formed at lower temperature by 300°C in comparison to the reference specimen but luminescence intesity was dependant on temperature of powder synthesis. The highest luminescence intensity was observed for powders synthesised at 1650°C.W artykule przedstawiono otrzymywanie proszku granatu YAG:Ce z zastosowaniem zmodyfikowanej metody reakcji w stanie stałym. Mieszanina proszków wyjściowych została poddana procesowi aktywacji mechanochemicznej celem zwiększenia jego reaktywności podczas syntezy wysokotemperaturowej. Zbadano wpływ aktywacji na powierzchnie właściwą wyjściowej mieszaniny proszków. Proszek wygrzewany w różnych temperaturach został poddany analizie fazowej (XRD) oraz obserwacji na mikroskopie skaningowym (SEM). Zbadano niektóre właściwości optyczne: absorpcje i luminescencje przy wzbudzeniu alpha=450 nm. Wykazano, że w wyniku aktywacji mechanochemicznej proszku wyjściowego YAG następuje obniżenie temperatury otrzymywania jednofazowego granatu itrowo-glinowego o 300 C, natomiast intensywność luminescencji zależała od temperatury syntezy; najwyższą uzyskano po syntezie w 1650 C

Structure and Properties of Lightweight Ceramic Aggregates Based on Local Silesian Waste Materials

This paper is focused on the manufacturing and properties of light weight aggregates made from local waste materials. The waste materials were car windshield glass contaminated by PVB foil, fly ash, mine slates as well as wastes after toothpaste production. The main aim of the research was to combine car windshield glass and the aluminosilicate coal mine slates as a basis for light weight aggregates manufacturing. Fly ash were added in order to modify rheological properties of the plastic mass. Toothpaste wastes were introduced as a source of carbonates and CO2 evolution during thermal treatment. After milling and mixing all materials they were pressed and sintered at temperature range of 950°C-1100°C in air. The results show that it is possible to receive light weight aggregates only from the Silesian local waste materials. The significant influence of sintering temperature on properties of aggregates was observed