Searching for Ground Truth: a stepping stone in automating genre classification

This paper examines genre classification of documents and its role in enabling the effective automated management of digital documents by digital libraries and other repositories. We have previously presented genre classification as a valuable step toward achieving automated extraction of descriptive metadata for digital material. Here, we present results from experiments using human labellers, conducted to assist in genre characterisation and the prediction of obstacles which need to be overcome by an automated system, and to contribute to the process of creating a solid testbed corpus for extending automated genre classification and testing metadata extraction tools across genres. We also describe the performance of two classifiers based on image and stylistic modeling features in labelling the data resulting from the agreement of three human labellers across fifteen genre classes.

Camera traps enable the estimation of herbaceous aboveground net primary production (ANPP) in an African savanna at high temporal resolution

Determining the drivers of aboveground net primary production (ANPP), a key ecosystem process, is an important goal of ecosystem ecology. However, accurate estimation of ANPP across larger areas remains challenging, especially for savanna ecosystems that are characterized by large spatiotemporal heterogeneity in ANPP. Satellite remote sensing methods are frequently used to estimate productivity at the landscape scale but generally lack the spatial and temporal resolution to capture the determinants of productivity variation. Here, we developed and tested methods for estimating herbaceous productivity as an alternative to labour-intensive repeated biomass clipping and caging of small plots. We compared measures of three spectral greenness indices, normalized difference vegetation index derived from Sentinel-2 (NDVIs) and a handheld radiometer (NDVIg), and green chromatic coordinate derived from digital repeat cameras (GCC) and tested their relationship to biweekly field-measured herbaceous ANPP using movable exclosures. We found that a satellite-based model including average NDVIs and its rate of change (ΔNDVIs) over the biweekly productivity measurement interval predicted herbaceous ANPP reasonably well (Jackknife R2 = 0.26). However, the predictive accuracy doubled (Jackknife R2 = 0.52) when including the sum of day to day increases in camera trap-derived vegetation greenness (tGCC). This result can be considered promising, given the current lack of productivity estimation methods at comparable spatiotemporal resolution. We furthermore found that the fine (daily) temporal resolution of GCC time series captured fast vegetation responses to rainfall events that were missed when using a coarser temporal resolution (>2 days). These findings demonstrate the importance of measuring at a fine temporal resolution for predicting herbaceous ANPP in savanna ecosystems. We conclude that camera traps are promising in offering a reliable and cost-effective method to estimate productivity in savannas and contribute to a better understanding of ecosystem functioning and its drivers

Local and systemic effects of fibrin and cyanoacrylate adhesives on lung lesions in rabbits

OBJECTIVES: Tissue adhesives can be used to prevent pulmonary air leaks, which frequently occur after lung interventions. The objective of this study is to evaluate local and systemic effects of fibrin and cyanoacrylate tissue adhesives on lung lesions in rabbits. METHODS: Eighteen rabbits were submitted to videothoracoscopy + lung incision alone (control) or videothoracoscopy + lung incision + local application of fibrin or cyanoacrylate adhesive. Blood samples were collected and assessed for leukocyte, neutrophil and lymphocyte counts and interleukin-8 levels preoperatively and at 48 hours and 28 days post-operatively. After 28 days, the animals were euthanized for gross examination of the lung surface, and lung fragments were excised for histopathological analysis. RESULTS: Fibrin and cyanoacrylate produced similar adhesion scores of the lung to the parietal pleura. Microscopic analysis revealed uniform low-cellular tissue infiltration in the fibrin group and an intense tissue reaction characterized by dense inflammatory infiltration of granulocytes, giant cells and necrosis in the cyanoacrylate group. No changes were detected in the leukocyte, neutrophil or lymphocyte count at any time-point, while the interleukin-8 levels were increased in the fibrin and cyanoacrylate groups after 48 hours compared with the pre-operative control levels (

Speech perception scores in cochlear implant recipients : an analysis of ceiling effects in the CUNY sentence test (Quiet) in post-lingually deafened cochlear implant recipients

OBJECTIVES : To evaluate the clinical utility of the City University of New York sentence test in a cohort of post-lingually deafened cochlear implants recipients over time. METHODS : 117 post-lingually deafened, Australian English-speaking CI recipients aged between 23 and 98 years (M = 66 years; SD = 15.09) were recruited. CUNY sentence test scores in quiet were collated and analysed at two cut-offs, 95% and 100%, as ceiling scores. RESULTS : CUNY sentence scores ranged from 4% to 100% (M = 86.75; SD = 20.65), with 38.8% of participants scoring 95% and 16.5% of participants reaching the 100% scores. The percentage of participants reaching the 95% and 100% ceiling scores increased over time (6 and 12 months post-implantation). The distribution of all post-operative CUNY test scores skewed to the right with 82% of test scores reaching above 90%. DISCUSSION : This study demonstrates that the CUNY test cannot be used as a valid tool to measure the speech perception skills of post-lingually deafened CI recipients over time. This may be overcome by using adaptive test protocols or linguistically, cognitively or contextually demanding test materials. CONCLUSION : The high percentage of CI recipients achieving ceiling scores for the CUNY sentence test in quiet at 3 months post-implantation, questions the validity of using CUNY in CI assessment test battery and limits its application for use in longitudinal studies evaluating CI outcomes. Further studies are required to examine different methods to overcome this problem.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ycii202017-02-28hb2016Speech-Language Pathology and Audiolog

Validation of remote mapping of cochlear implants

Recipients of cochlear implants need to attend regular mapping sessions to adjust their speech processors.We developed a PC-based system for remote mapping, which employed voice, video and text communication. Eleven implant recipients had their implant electrodes programmed (mapped) both by conventional methods and remotely. Speech tests, conducted by a family member or research assistant, were used to test the outcome of the programming during the remote consultation. The recipient and audiologist were surveyed regarding aspects of the teleconsultation. There were no significant differences between conventionally and remotely programmed electrode settings. The speech test results were perfect in most cases. The average time to complete the conventional mapping session was 37 min and the average time for the remote mapping session was 42 min (P_0.034). Recipients and the audiologist reported favourably on most aspects of the consultations. Lack of synchronisation between voice and video was the most common problem, which disrupted communication. The assistant was important to overcome this problem. All but one participant indicated they would be willing to use tele-mapping in the future. Remote programming of cochlear implants can be conducted reliably with relatively simple equipment, potentially in the homes of remotely located patients assisted by a family member.Med-el and ESIA’s Gift of Hearinghttp://jtt.sagepub.comam201

Transport spectroscopy in a time-modulated open quantum dot

We have investigated the time-modulated coherent quantum transport phenomena in a ballistic open quantum dot. The conductance $G$ and the electron dwell time in the dots are calculated by a time-dependent mode-matching method. Under high-frequency modulation, the traversing electrons are found to exhibit three types of resonant scatterings. They are intersideband scatterings: into quasibound states in the dots, into true bound states in the dots, and into quasibound states just beneath the subband threshold in the leads. Dip structures or fano structures in $G$ are their signatures. Our results show structures due to 2$\hbar\omega$ intersideband processes. At the above scattering resonances, we have estimated, according to our dwell time calculation, the number of round-trip scatterings that the traversing electrons undertake between the two dot openings.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Chunking in Turkish with Conditional Random Fields

In this paper, we report our work on chunking in Turkish. We used the data that we generated by manually translating a subset of the Penn Treebank. We exploited the already available tags in the trees to automatically identify and label chunks in their Turkish translations. We used conditional random fields (CRF) to train a model over the annotated data. We report our results on different levels of chunk resolution.Publisher's Versio