Linguistic redundancy in Twitter

In the last few years, the interest of the research community in micro-blogs and social media services, such as Twitter, is growing exponentially. Yet, so far not much attention has been paid on a key characteristic of micro-blogs: the high level of information redundancy. The aim of this paper is to systematically approach this problem by providing an operational definition of redundancy. We cast redundancy in the framework of Textual En-tailment Recognition. We also provide quantitative evidence on the pervasiveness of redundancy in Twitter, and describe a dataset of redundancy-annotated tweets. Finally, we present a general purpose system for identifying redundant tweets. An extensive quantitative evaluation shows that our system successfully solves the redundancy detection task, improving over baseline systems with statistical significance

Terminology extraction: an analysis of linguistic and statistical approaches

Are linguistic properties and behaviors important to recognize terms? Are statistical measures effective to extract terms? Is it possible to capture a sort of termhood with computation linguistic techniques? Or maybe, terms are too much sensitive to exogenous and pragmatic factors that cannot be confined in computational linguistic? All these questions are still open. This study tries to contribute in the search of an answer, with the belief that it can be found only through a careful experimental analysis of real case studies and a study of their correlation with theoretical insights

A Machine learning approach to textual entailment recognition

Designing models for learning textual entailment recognizers from annotated examples is not an easy task, as it requires modeling the semantic relations and interactions involved between two pairs of text fragments. In this paper, we approach the problem by first introducing the class of pair feature spaces, which allow supervised machine learning algorithms to derive first-order rewrite rules from annotated examples. In particular, we propose syntactic and shallow semantic feature spaces, and compare them to standard ones. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed spaces learn first-order derivations, while standard ones are not expressive enough to do so

Assessing candidate preference through web browsing history

Predicting election outcomes is of considerable interest to candidates, political scientists, and the public at large. We propose the use of Web browsing history as a new indicator of candidate preference among the electorate, one that has potential to overcome a number of the drawbacks of election polls. However, there are a number of challenges that must be overcome to effectively use Web browsing for assessing candidate preference—including the lack of suitable ground truth data and the heterogeneity of user populations in time and space. We address these challenges, and show that the resulting methods can shed considerable light on the dynamics of voters’ candidate preferences in ways that are difficult to achieve using polls.Accepted manuscrip

Fasting conditions: Influence of water intake on clinical chemistry analytes

Introduction: Currently available recommendations regarding fasting requirements before phlebotomy do not specify any maximum water intake volume permitted during the fasting period. The aim was to study the effects of 300 mL water intake 1 h before phlebotomy on specific analytes. Materials and methods: Blood was collected from 20 women (median age (min-max): 24 (22 - 50) years) in basal state (T0) and 1 h after 300 mL water intake (T1). Glucose, total proteins (TP), urea, creatinine, cystatin C, total bilirubin (BT), total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides (Tg), uric acid (UA), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), aspartate-aminotransferase (AST), alanine-aminotransferase and lactate-dehydrogenase (LD) were studied. Results were analyzed using Wilcoxon test. Mean difference (%) was calculated for each analyte and was further compared with reference change value (RCV). Only mean differences (%) higher than RCV were considered clinically significant. Results: Significant differences (median T0 vs median T1, P) were observed for TP (73 vs 74 g/L, 0.001); urea (4.08 vs 4.16 mmol/L, 0.010); BT (12 vs 13 μmol/L, 0.021); total cholesterol (4.9 vs 4.9 mmol/L, 0.042); Tg (1.05 vs 1.06 mmol/L, 0.002); UA (260 vs 270 μmol/L, 0.006); GGT (12 vs 12 U/L, 0.046); AST (22 vs 24 U/L, 0.001); and LD (364 vs 386 U/L, 0.001). Although the differences observed were statistically significant, they were not indicative of clinically significant changes. Conclusions: A water intake of 300 mL 1 h prior to phlebotomy does not interfere with the analytes studied in the present work

Avaliação do desempenho analítico do três métodos de quantificação de hemoglobina A1c

El laboratorio debe garantizar la exactitud de los resultados de HbA1c cumpliendo con los requisitos analíticos internacionales de calidad, cada vez más estrictos, y asegurar que una variación de HbA1c de 0,5 puntos porcentuales (%-NGSP) o más entre dos controles consecutivos de un paciente diabético se deba a una variación clínica y no a una variación analítica. En este trabajo se evaluó el desempeño analítico de tres métodos comerciales para HbA1c: Inmunoturbidimétrico, Enzimático y Cromatográfico de Intercambio Catiónico. Para tal fin, se procesaron por cada método distintos controles comerciales de HbA1c, con trazabilidad al método de referencia IFCC, determinándose en cada caso Coeficiente de Variación Total, Bias, Error Total, Valor de Referencia del Cambio y cambio clínico significativo de HbA1c en el punto crítico 7,0 %-NGSP. En las condiciones analíticas de este trabajo, solamente el método Inmunoturbidimétrico tuvo un desempeño analítico aceptable, permitiendo atribuir un cambio de 0,5 %-NGSP a una variación clínica significativa del paciente. Frente a las recomendaciones internacionales sobre el uso de HbA1c en el control y diagnóstico de diabetes, es indiscutible la importancia de elegir un método que satisfaga los requerimientos analíticos mínimos de calidad para asegurar la utilidad clínica del resultado de HbA1c.The laboratory must guarantee the accuracy of HbA1c results meeting the increasingly strict international analytical quality standards and assuring that an HbA1c variation of 0.5 percentage points (%-NGSP) or more between two consecutive controls of a diabetic patient is due to a clinical variation and not to an analytical variation. In this paper, the analytical performance of three commercial methods for HbA1c: Immunoturbidimetric, Chromatographic and Enzymatic Cation Exchange, were evaluated. For this purpose, commercial con- trols with assigned values traceable to the IFCC reference method for HbA1c were processed. For each methodology, total Coefficient of Variation (CV%), Bias%, Total Error (TE%), Change Reference Value and Clinically Significant Change (CSC) at the critical point of HbA1c 7.0%-NGSP were determined. Within the analytical conditions of this study, only the immunoturbidimetric method had an acceptable analytical performance, allowing attribute a change in 0.5%-NGSP to a significant clinical variation. Faced with international recommendations on the use of HbA1c on control and diagnosis of diabetes, the importance of choosing a method that meets the minimum analytical quality requirements to ensure the clinical utility of HbA1c result is undeniable.O laboratório deve garantir a precisão dos resultados da HbA1c cumprindo com os requisitos analíticos internacionais de qualidade cada vez mais exigentes e garantir que uma variação de HbA1c de 0,5 pontos percentuais (% - NGSP) ou mais entre duas verificações consecutivas de um doente diabético seja devido a uma variação clínica e não a uma variação analítica. Neste trabalho foi avaliado o desempenho analítico de três métodos comerciais para HbA1c: imunoturbidimétrico, enzimático e cromatográfico de intercâmbio catiônico. Para esse fim, foram processados diversos controles comerciais de HbA1c por cada método, com rastreabilidade ao método de referência IFCC, determinando em cada caso Quociente de Variação Total, Bias, Erro Total, Valor de Referência da Alteração e Alteração Clinicamente Significativa de HbA1c no ponto crítico 7,0%-NGSP. Nas condições de análise deste estudo, apenas o método imunoturbidimétrico teve um desempenho analítico aceitável, permitindo atribuir uma alteração de 0,5%-NGSP a uma variação clínica significativa do paciente. Perante as recomendações internacionais sobre o uso da HbA1c no controle e diagnóstico da diabetes, é inegável a importância de escolher um método que atenda os requisitos analíticos mínimos de qualidade de análise para garantir a utilidade clínica do resultado HbA1c.Fil: Unger, Gisela. Universidad Nacional del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Ruiz, Gustavo. Laboratorio Privado Dr. Ruiz; ArgentinaFil: Milano, Pablo Gustavo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientí­ficas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Bahí­a Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquí­micas Bahí­a Blanca (i); ArgentinaFil: Benozzi, Silvia. Universidad Nacional del Sur; ArgentinaFil: Pennacchiotti, Graciela Laura. Universidad Nacional del Sur; Argentina. Hospital Municipal Dr. Lucero de Bahía Blanca; Argentin

Coffee intake one hour prior to phlebotomy produces no clinically significant changes in routine biochemical test results

IntroductionAlthough current guidelines recommend not drinking coffee prior to phlebotomy, our hypothesis is that drinking coffee does not affect the clinical interpretation of biochemical and haematological test results. Materials and methodsTwenty-seven volunteers were studied in basal state (T0) and 1h after (T1) drinking coffee. Routine haematological (Sysmex-XN1000 analyser) and biochemistry parameters (Vitros 4600 analyser) were studied. Results were compared using the Wilcoxon test (P < 0.05). A clinical change was considered when mean percent difference (MD%) was higher than the reference change value (RCV). ResultsCoffee intake produced statistically, but not clinically, significant: i) increases in haemoglobin (P = 0.009), mean cell haemoglobin concentration (P = 0.044), neutrophils (P = 0.001), albumin (P = 0.001), total protein (P = 0.000), cholesterol (P = 0.025), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (P = 0.007), uric acid (P = 0.011), calcium (P = 0.001), potassium (P = 0.010), aspartate aminotransferase (P = 0.001), amylase (P = 0.026), and lactate dehydrogenase (P = 0.001), and ii) decreases in mean cell volume (P = 0.002), red cell distribution width (P = 0.001), eosinophils (P = 0.002), and lymphocytes (P = 0.001), creatinine (P = 0.001), total bilirubin (P = 0.012), phosphorus (P = 0.001), magnesium (P = 0.007), and chloride (P = 0.001). ConclusionDrinking a cup of coffee 1 hour prior to phlebotomy produces no clinically significant changes in routine biochemical and haematological test results