Vote Goat: Conversational Movie Recommendation

Conversational search and recommendation systems that use natural language interfaces are an increasingly important area raising a number of research and interface design questions. Despite the increasing popularity of digital personal assistants, the number of conversational recommendation systems is limited and their functionality basic. In this demonstration we introduce Vote Goat, a conversational recommendation agent built using Google's DialogFlow framework. The demonstration provides an interactive movie recommendation system using a speech-based natural language interface. The main intents span search and recommendation tasks including: rating movies, receiving recommendations, retrieval over movie metadata, and viewing crowdsourced statistics. Vote Goat uses gamification to incentivize movie voting interactions with the 'Greatest Of All Time' (GOAT) movies derived from user ratings. The demo includes important functionality for research applications with logging of interactions for building test collections as well as A/B testing to allow researchers to experiment with system parameters

Core information sets for informed consent to surgical interventions:baseline information of importance to patients and clinicians

Abstract Background Consent remains a crucial, yet challenging, cornerstone of clinical practice. The ethical, legal and professional understandings of this construct have evolved away from a doctor-centred act to a patient-centred process that encompasses the patient’s values, beliefs and goals. This alignment of consent with the philosophy of shared decision-making was affirmed in a recent high-profile Supreme Court ruling in England. The communication of information is central to this model of health care delivery but it can be difficult for doctors to gauge the information needs of the individual patient. The aim of this paper is to describe ‘core information sets’ which are defined as a minimum set of consensus-derived information about a given procedure to be discussed with all patients. Importantly, they are intended to catalyse discussion of subjective importance to individuals. Main body The model described in this paper applies health services research and Delphi consensus-building methods to an idea orginally proposed 30 years ago. The hypothesis is that, first, large amounts of potentially-important information are distilled down to discrete information domains. These are then, secondly, rated by key stakeholders in multiple iterations, so that core information of agreed importance can be defined. We argue that this scientific approach is key to identifying information important to all stakeholders, which may otherwise be communicated poorly or omitted from discussions entirely. Our methods apply systematic review, qualitative, survey and consensus-building techniques to define this ‘core information’. We propose that such information addresses the ‘reasonable patient’ standard for information disclosure but, more importantly, can serve as a spring board for high-value discussion of importance to the individual patient. Conclusion The application of established research methods can define information of core importance to informed consent. Further work will establish how best to incorporate this model in routine practice

Core information sets for informed consent to surgical interventions:baseline information of importance to patients and clinicians

Abstract Background Consent remains a crucial, yet challenging, cornerstone of clinical practice. The ethical, legal and professional understandings of this construct have evolved away from a doctor-centred act to a patient-centred process that encompasses the patient’s values, beliefs and goals. This alignment of consent with the philosophy of shared decision-making was affirmed in a recent high-profile Supreme Court ruling in England. The communication of information is central to this model of health care delivery but it can be difficult for doctors to gauge the information needs of the individual patient. The aim of this paper is to describe ‘core information sets’ which are defined as a minimum set of consensus-derived information about a given procedure to be discussed with all patients. Importantly, they are intended to catalyse discussion of subjective importance to individuals. Main body The model described in this paper applies health services research and Delphi consensus-building methods to an idea orginally proposed 30 years ago. The hypothesis is that, first, large amounts of potentially-important information are distilled down to discrete information domains. These are then, secondly, rated by key stakeholders in multiple iterations, so that core information of agreed importance can be defined. We argue that this scientific approach is key to identifying information important to all stakeholders, which may otherwise be communicated poorly or omitted from discussions entirely. Our methods apply systematic review, qualitative, survey and consensus-building techniques to define this ‘core information’. We propose that such information addresses the ‘reasonable patient’ standard for information disclosure but, more importantly, can serve as a spring board for high-value discussion of importance to the individual patient. Conclusion The application of established research methods can define information of core importance to informed consent. Further work will establish how best to incorporate this model in routine practice

Res Rep 12-01 Wheat and Oat Variety Performance Tests in Tennessee 2011

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The Good Childhood Report 2014

The Good Childhood Report 2014 is the third in a series of annual reports published by The Children's Society about how children in the UK feel about their lives. The first part of the report presents an updated picture of overall levels of subjective well-being in the UK. The second part of the report looks at new evidence on four different factors that are associated with children's subjective well-being: children's activities and behaviours, material conditions - deprivation, relative wealth and changes over time, parental subjective well-being and mental health, and parenting behaviours

The Good Childhood Report 2015

This is the fourth annual Good Childhood Report. It is based on The Children's Society's ongoing research on children's subjective well-being, undertaken in collaboration with the University of York, which is the most extensive programme of national research on children's subjective well-being globally. The purpose of this series of reports is to provide the best available up-to-date information about the perspectives of children in the UK on their lives and well-being

Synthesis of spiroacetals using functionalised titanium carbenoids

Alkylidenation of lactones with functionalised titanium carbenoid reagents (Schrock carbenes) followed by acid-induced cyclisation of the resulting enol ethers constitutes a new method for the preparation of [4.4], [4.5] and [5.5] spiroacetals (1,6-dioxaspiro[4.4]nonanes, 1,6-dioxaspiro[4.5]decanes and 1,7-dioxaspiro[5.5]undecanes, respectively, sometimes termed 5,5-, 5,6- and 6,6-spiroketals). The titanium carbenoids are easily generated from readily available thioacetals

A two-year participatory intervention project with owners to reduce lameness and limb abnormalities in working horses in Jaipur, India

Participatory methods are increasingly used in international human development, but scientific evaluation of their efficacy versus a control group is rare. Working horses support families in impoverished communities. Lameness and limb abnormalities are highly prevalent in these animals and a cause for welfare concern. We aimed to stimulate and evaluate improvements in lameness and limb abnormalities in horses whose owners took part in a 2-year participatory intervention project to reduce lameness (PI) versus a control group (C) in Jaipur, India.In total, 439 owners of 862 horses participated in the study. PI group owners from 21 communities were encouraged to meet regularly to discuss management and work practices influencing lameness and poor welfare and to track their own progress in improving these. Lameness examinations (41 parameters) were conducted at the start of the study (Baseline), and after 1 year and 2 years. Results were compared with control horses from a further 21 communities outside the intervention. Of the 149 horses assessed on all three occasions, PI horses showed significantly (P<0.05) greater improvement than C horses in 20 parameters, most notably overall lameness score, measures of sole pain and range of movement on limb flexion. Control horses showed slight but significantly greater improvements in four parameters, including frog quality in fore and hindlimbs.This participatory intervention succeeded in improving lameness and some limb abnormalities in working horses, by encouraging changes in management and work practices which were feasible within owners’ socioeconomic and environmental constraints. Demonstration of the potentially sustainable improvements achieved here should encourage further development of participatory intervention approaches to benefit humans and animals in other contexts