Summarising News Stories for Children

This paper proposes a system to automatically summarise news articles in a manner suitable for children by deriving and combining statistical ratings for how important, positively oriented and easy to read each sentence is. Our results demonstrate that this approach succeeds in generating summaries that are suitable for children, and that there is further scope for combining this extractive approach with abstractive methods used in text implification

Coupling CFD and visualisation to model the behaviour and effect on visibility of small particles in air

The use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and lighting simulation software is becoming commonplace in building design. This study looks at a novel linkage between these two tools in the visualization of droplets or particles suspended in air. CFD is used to predict the distribution of the particles, which is then processed and passed to the lighting simulation tool. The mechanism for transforming CFD contaminant concentration predictions to a form suitable for visual simulation is explained in detail and an example presented which demonstrates this linkage. The CFD-visualisation simulations described in this paper have applications in both automotive and fire safety through the modelling of fog and smoke respectively. Historically, smoke and fog effects have been rendered in images with no attempt at modelling physical reality. The novelty of the work presented in this paper is that, for the first time, an attempt is made to model both the fluid mechanics and optical physics of small particles suspended in a primary fluid

Sequential Quantiles via Hermite Series Density Estimation

Sequential quantile estimation refers to incorporating observations into quantile estimates in an incremental fashion thus furnishing an online estimate of one or more quantiles at any given point in time. Sequential quantile estimation is also known as online quantile estimation. This area is relevant to the analysis of data streams and to the one-pass analysis of massive data sets. Applications include network traffic and latency analysis, real time fraud detection and high frequency trading. We introduce new techniques for online quantile estimation based on Hermite series estimators in the settings of static quantile estimation and dynamic quantile estimation. In the static quantile estimation setting we apply the existing Gauss-Hermite expansion in a novel manner. In particular, we exploit the fact that Gauss-Hermite coefficients can be updated in a sequential manner. To treat dynamic quantile estimation we introduce a novel expansion with an exponentially weighted estimator for the Gauss-Hermite coefficients which we term the Exponentially Weighted Gauss-Hermite (EWGH) expansion. These algorithms go beyond existing sequential quantile estimation algorithms in that they allow arbitrary quantiles (as opposed to pre-specified quantiles) to be estimated at any point in time. In doing so we provide a solution to online distribution function and online quantile function estimation on data streams. In particular we derive an analytical expression for the CDF and prove consistency results for the CDF under certain conditions. In addition we analyse the associated quantile estimator. Simulation studies and tests on real data reveal the Gauss-Hermite based algorithms to be competitive with a leading existing algorithm.Comment: 43 pages, 9 figures. Improved version incorporating referee comments, as appears in Electronic Journal of Statistic

Nature and Spirit in Hegel’s Anthropology : Some Idealist Themes in Hegel’s Pragmatism

Certaines lectures récentes de Hegel ont mis l’accent sur la dimension sociale de la philosophie de Hegel afin de parer les exagérations et les méprises courantes concernant son idéalisme. Robert Brandom, par exemple, a relevé des « thèmes pragmatistes dans l’idéalisme de Hegel ». Mais une question d’ordre général se pose : cette stratégie déflationniste rend-elle réellement justice à la pensée de Hegel ? Qu’advient-il des conditions logiques requises pour la connaissance et l’action, auxquelles Hegel attache beaucoup d’importance, et comment ces conditions cadrent-elles avec les dimensions naturelles et sociales de l’expérience ? En tablant sur des passages de l’Encyclopédie et d’autres textes, le présent article argumente en faveur d’un transcendantalisme modeste chez Hegel, afin d’éviter la rectification exagérée qui consiste à réduire le concept du concept chez Hegel à un réseau de pratiques sociales.Some recent readings of Hegel have stressed the social dimension of Hegel’s philosophy in order to ward off common exaggerations and misconceptions about his idealism. Robert Brandom, for example, has pointed to “pragmatist themes in Hegel’s idealism.” But a general question arises as to whether this deflationary strategy really does justice to Hegel’s thought : what becomes of the logical preconditions for knowledge and agency, on which Hegel places much emphasis, and how exactly do these preconditions mesh with the natural and social dimensions of experience ? On the basis of passages in the Encyclopedia and other texts, this paper argues for a modest transcendentalism in Hegel, in order to avoid the over-correction that consists in reducing Hegel’s concept of the concept to a network of social practices

Digital gardens with real toads in them: the place of heritage media in a digital art and design education.

At a time when digital media is regarded as orthodoxy in education, in advanced global economies there is a pressing argument to review the lessons of the past and reflect on whether they are still applicable. This paper will enquire into today’s issues with digital practices in art and design education using relevant, historical examples from the main changes in approach of the last century. It will also explain how the changes of approach to art and design education has affected the choice of materials, the stress on different skills and the values of different creative arts within the subject. From a position as a practitioner in the moving image, and in response to this autoethnographic research, the author puts forward a pluralist approach to teaching design, through a hybrid of particular aspects of ‘heritage’ and digital practices

L’art in extremis: le monochrome chez Theodor W. Adorno et Yves Klein

L’oeuvre de Theodor W. Adorno, et plus particulièrement sa Théorie esthétique, témoigne de sa défense soutenue de l’art moderne. Toutefois, dans le cadre de ses réflexions, on ne doit pas oublier qu’elle comporte également une dimension critique. Sa polémique à propos du jazz, par exemple, est devenue célèbre. Par contraste, sa critique de la peinture monochrome demeure relativement inconnue. Ce texte propose d’abord d’esquisser les éléments de celle-ci afin de tester ensuite ses limites en analysant une oeuvre monochrome d’Yves Klein: IKB 79.Theodor W. Adorno’s defence of modern art in Aesthetic Theory and other writings is well known, as is his scathing attack on jazz. Less well known is his critique of monochromatic painting. This article first sketches the stakes and terms of this critique in relation to Clement Greenberg’s dismissal of much monochromatic or near-monochromatic painting, before moving on to an analysis of Adorno’s position. For the purposes of this analysis, Yves Klein’s IKB 79 serves as a test case

An attempt to induce calcification and healing in experimental tuberculosis of guinea pigs

(1) With the therapeutic means employed in this experiment no marked prophylactic or curative results were obtained in any group as compared with the controls which received no treatment.(2) Calcium and vitamin D did not appear to be a factor of importance in the production of calcification when given in the dosage and by the method used here. They could not be said to have influenced the amount and rate of spread of the disease nor led to any unusual degree of fibroblastic reaction.(3) As judged by the various criteria used to assess the effect of the treatments it was found that tendencies suggesting a favourable effect were most frequently noted in the calcium, cholesterol and tuberculin group.Calcification occurred with such frequency in this group, that, in conjunction with the other favourable effects noted, the combination may be regarded as of sufficient significance to warrant fuller investigation.No results were obtained which would justify any of the therapeutic measures adopted in this experiment being considered applicable to the treatment of tuberculosis in humans

An Approach to the Aetiology of Prematurity: A Study of the Obstetric Histories of Mothers of Premature Babies with an Appendix on the Progress and Development of Premature Children

1. The neo-natal death rate among premature babies is very much higher than that among mature babies, and as a result of the changing pattern in infant mortality in recent years prematurity has become relatively more important as a cause, or contributing cause, of infant deaths. 2. When surviving premature children are compared with surviving mature children it has been found that the premature children are at a disadvantage in various respects. 3. For these reasons it is important to attempt to reduce the incidence of prematurity, but this object is hampered by inadequate knowledge of the aetiology of prematurity. 4. A premature child is defined as a child who weighs 5 1/2 lbs. (2500 G.) or less at birth, regardless of the length of gestation. In spite of its faults, this is the best definition available. 5. The aetiology of prematurity is not fully understood. In about half the cases of prematurity which occur no cause can be defined. In the remaining half the prematurity is associated with complications of pregnancy and it is generally assumed that these complications are the cause of the prematurity, but the way by which this is brought about is not known. It is known that a large number of factors such as social class, maternal age, and parity influence the prematurity rate. It is also known that prematurity tends to be repeated and this tendency may be associated with a tendency to abort and show signs of toxaemia. 6. The aim of this study was to examine the occurrence of prematurity against the background of the reproductive tendencies of the mothers of premature children. In order to do this, we interviewed the mothers of 515 single-born premature children who had been born in Glasgow during the year 1950, and obtained the obstetric histories of these mothers. There does not appear to be any bias in the sample which would influence the conclusions which will be drawn. 7. The incidence of prematurity among the single-born sib- lings of these premature children was 26.4%. It was shown that in a number of cases the prematurity in 1950 might have been caused by factors associated with that particular pregnancy, but if these cases were excluded it would be reasonable to postulate that the prematurity in the remaining cases was due to a predisposition on the part of the mothers to have premature babies. 8. This predisposition to prematurity is made up of two tendencies: one to have mature babies of low birth weight which are by definition premature, and the other to have abnormally short pregnancies. 9. There is no fundamental difference between the reproductive histories of mothers who have premature babies after uncomplicated pregnancies and mothers who have premature babies after complicated pregnancies. Such differences as appear to exist are due to a tendency for the mothers who had complicated pregnancies to have still-births and abortions instead of premature live-births among their other pregnancies, and to the fact that most of the mature children of low birth weight who are classified as premature are born after uncomplicated pregnancies. There is an important relationship between prematurity and complications of pregnancy in that prematurity occurs more often in the presence of complications than in their absence, but the similarity in reproductive histories, and the absence of satisfactory evidence to the contrary, justifies the rejection of the view that prematurity is caused by complications of pregnancy. 10. The incidence of abortions among the other pregnancies of the mothers of these premature children was unduly high, especially when the birth weight of the premature child had been low. This and other evidence led to the conclusion that there is some common factor in the aetiologies of abortion, prematurity, and toxaemia. 11. The main conclusion drawn from this study is that most cases of prematurity are due to a maternal predisposition to have premature babies. This may simply be a tendency for certain mothers, probably of small stature, to have full-time babies of low birth weight,but more often it is due to a tendency to have abnormally short pregnancies. These short pregnancies are caused by a maternal-foetal reaction due ultimately to the genetic constitution of the foetus. This conclusion is supported by the finding that there is a relationship between a history of prematurity in the family of either parent and the incidence of prematurity among their children. Most of the remaining cases of prematurity, which are not due to a maternal predisposition, are caused by the action of factors associated with first pregnancies, high parity, and pregnancies during the later child-bearing years. A small residue is due to various other causes

Global hunting grounds: power, scale and ecology in the negotiation of conservation

Increasingly, large international conservation organizations have come to rely upon market-oriented interventions, such as sport trophy hunting, to achieve multiple goals of biodiversity protection and ‘development’. Such initiatives apply an understanding of ‘nature’-defined through an emerging discourse of global ecology-to incorporate local ecologies within the material organizational sphere of capital and transnational institutions, generating new forms of governmentality at scales inaccessible to traditional means of discipline such as legislation and enforcement. In this paper, I historicize debates over ‘nature’ in a region of northern Pakistan, and demonstrate how local ecologies are becoming subject to transnational institutional agents through strategies similar to those used by colonial administrators to gain ecological control over their ‘dominions’. This contemporary reworking of a colonialist ethic of conservation relies rhetorically on a discourse of global ecology, and on ideological representations of a resident population as incapable environmental managers, to assert and implement an allegedly scientifically and ethically superior force better able to respond to assumed degradation. In undertaking such disciplinary projects, international conservation organizations rely on, and produce, a representation of ecological space as ‘global’ to facilitate the attainment of translocal political-ecological goals

Irrigation water use in southern Ontario

The appreciation of water as a finite resource has engendered a renewed research interest in producing effective water management policies and practices in order to reduce both current and potential demands on existing reserves. Unfortunately, such research, especially in the humid regions of North America, has concentrated on water use in urban areas and has neglected the use of water in irrigation agriculture; even though irrigation is a major consumptive use of water in many localized areas. In addition, research has been dominated by physical, technological and economic viewpoints at the expense of an understanding of the human element in the management of irrigation water. This neglect results in the misinterpretation of current water use practices and inaccurate estimates of future demand. Potential consequences include the development of ill-devised water management policies, and recommendations of ineffective water management practices. This study attempts to provide an understanding of existing irrigation management practices in southern Ontario. Specifically, 35 irrigating farms in three distinct counties were surveyed to determine the methods of securing a supply of irrigation water, delivering and applying water to fields, and the factors affecting the timing and amount of water applications. Bureaucratic regulation of water use is reviewed and found to be ineffective in controlling the use of water. Additionally, due to the proximity of water sources to the point of use, communal allocation and regulation of water use are not evident in southern Ontario. An examination of on-farm irrigation practices, including both the technical and cultural methods of irrigating, reveals a pattern of diversity and variation between farmers. This is related to the variety of circumstance within which farmers operate and the practically autonomous control over water exercised by each individual irrigator. According to yield maximizing criteria, the majority of surveyed farmers are found to be under-utilizing irrigation water in terms of seasonal need. In practicing a form of survival irrigation, farmers deviate from scientific recommendations of optimal irrigation management practices. This is commonly explained in terms of irrationality due to a carelessness or lack of information on the part of the farmer. Conversely, this present study describes this dichotomy as one of differing objectives and characterizes existing practices as rational. In a system that is free from effective institutional constraints or controls over the delivery and use of water, farmers have the flexibility to adapt their irrigation practices to their individual operating circumstance. In doing so, they are guided by their unique experience and objectives as farmers. If they are to be effective, recommendations to improve irrigation practices and the formulation of improved water management policies, must take into account the variety of circumstance in localized areas and be based on an understanding of the rationale behind existing water use practices