Visual analytics of academic writing

This paper describes a novel analytics dashboard which visualises the key features of scholarly documents. The Dashboard aggregates the salient sentences of scholarly papers, their rhetorical types and the key concepts mentioned within these sentences. These features are extracted from papers through a Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology, called Xerox Incremental Parser (XIP). The XIP Dashboard is a set of visual analytics modules based on the XIP output. In this paper, we briefly introduce the XIP technology and demonstrate an example visualisation of the XIP Dashboard

XIP Dashboard: visual analytics from automated rhetorical parsing of scientific metadiscourse

A key competency that we seek to build in learners is a critical mind, i.e. ability to engage with the ideas in the literature, and to identify when significant claims are being made in articles. The ability to decode such moves in texts is essential, as is the ability to make such moves in one’s own writing. Computational techniques for extracting them are becoming available, using Natural Language Processing (NLP) tuned to recognize the rhetorical signals that authors use when making a significant scholarly move. After reviewing related NLP work, we introduce the Xerox Incremental Parser (XIP), note previous work to render its output, and then motivate the design of the XIP Dashboard, a set of visual analytics modules built on XIP output, using the LAK/EDM open dataset as a test corpus. We report preliminary user reactions to a paper prototype of such a novel dashboard, describe the visualizations implemented to date, and present user scenarios for learners, educators and researchers. We conclude with a summary of ongoing design refinements, potential platform integrations, and questions that need to be investigated through end-user evaluations

Serum Calprotectin Levels in Dogs with Diarrhea

 Background: Diarrhea induced by infectious factors may lead to significant health problems in dogs. Canine parvovirus (CPV), canine coronavirus (CCV), canine distemper virus (CDV), Giardia spp., Escherichia coli (E. coli), and Salmonella spp. are the important infectious agents that may induce diarrhea in dogs. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of CPV, CCV, CDV, Giardia spp., E. coli, and Salmonella spp. infections on the change in serum calprotectin (Calp) concentration.Materials, Methods & Results: A total of 30 dogs were enrolled in the study. The study dogs were divided into 3 groups. Healthy animals as confirmed by clinical examination and animals negative for the specified pathogens were placed in Group 1. Animals infected by one or more agents, including CPV, CCV, CDV, and Giardia spp., but negative for E. coli or Salmonella spp. were placed in Group 2. Finally, animals positive for E. coli or Salmonella spp. and infected or not infected by one or more agents, including CPV, CCV, CDV, and Giardia spp., were placed in Group 3. Stool samples and rectal and conjunctival swab samples were collected to investigate the etiologic agents that induced diarrhea. Blood samples were collected through vena cephalica antebrachii for hematological and biochemical examinations. The samples were obtained via routine clinical examinations at the Prof. Dr. Servet SEKİN outpatient clinic at Dicle University Veterinary Faculty. CPV, CCV, CDV, and Giardia spp. diagnoses were made based on immunochromatographic test kits. The bacteriological analysis of stool samples were used to diagnose E. coli and Salmonella spp. infection. Serum Calp concentrations were measured by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). The analysis of swab and stool samples by immunochromatographic rapid diagnosis kits and microbiological methods showed that 5 animals were infected with CPV, 10 with CCV, 6 with CDV, 3 with Giardia spp., 12 with E. coli, and 2 with none of the specified agents. Total leukocyte count (WBC), lymphocyte (Lym) (%), and granulocyte (Gra) (%) values were higher in the diarrheal dogs when compared with the control group.  In the biochemical examination of serum samples, TBIL and P levels were higher and Na levels were lower in Group 3 when compared to the control group (P = 0.025, 0.024, and 0.018, respectively). TP and Alb values were lower in Group 2 compared to Groups 1 and 3 (P = 0.001 and 0.019 for TP, P = 0.000 and 0.001 for Alb, respectively). There was a statistically significant difference in CK levels between Group 1 and Group 2 (P = 0.013). Serum Calp level was higher in the E. coli infected group (Group 3) compared to the other groups, no significant differences were noted between the groups (P > 0.05).Discussion: In conclusion, to the best of authors knowledge, this study is the first to evaluate serum Calp levels in dogs with diarrhea induced by viral, bacterial, and protozoan infections. The Calp level was higher in the sick dogs that were infected by at least one agent, including CPV, CCV, CDV, and Giardia spp., and were at the same time E. coli positive when compared with the control group and the group without E. coli infections. It was concluded that new studies could be useful to reveal the diagnostic importance of serum Calp concentration in dogs with diarrhea and that these results may contribute to future studies in this area.Keywords: calprotectin, diarrhea, dog, serum

In vitro antimicrobial activity of three new generation disinfectants

Purpose: To determine the efficacies of three commercially available new generation disinfectants against some bacteria and yeast.Methods: Three commercially available new generation disinfectant (0.2 % chlorine dioxide, 0.3 % chlorine dioxide and 50 % hydrogen peroxide-stabilized by colloidal silver) were screened for their antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Klebsiella pneumonia RSKK 574, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 9027, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC 29212, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, S. aureus ATCC 43300 (methicillin resistant), S. epidermidis ATCC 12228 (non-biofilm forming), S. epidermidis ATCC 35948 (biofilm forming) and Candida albicans ATCC 10231. Quantitative suspension test was used to determine the efficacies of the disinfectants at contact times of 1, 3 and 5 min.Results: All of the new generation disinfectants were effective against test microorganisms at all test contact times.Conclusions: The findings indicate that the tested new generation disinfectants may be useful for routine disinfection purposes.Keywords: Antimicrobial activity, New generation disinfectants, Routine disinfectio

Visualizing the LAK/EDM literature using combined concept and rhetorical sentence extraction

Scientific communication demands more than the mere listing of empirical findings or assertion of beliefs. Arguments must be constructed to motivate problems, expose weaknesses, justify higher-order concepts, and support claims to be advancing the field. Researchers learn to signal clearly in their writing when they are making such moves, and the progress of natural language processing technology has made it possible to combine conventional concept extraction with rhetorical analysis that detects these moves. To demonstrate the potential of this technology, this short paper documents preliminary analyses of the dataset published by the Society for Learning Analytics, comprising the full texts from primary conferences and journals in Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK) and Educational Data Mining (EDM). We document the steps taken to analyse the papers thematically using Edge Betweenness Clustering, combined with sentence extraction using the Xerox Incremental Parser's rhetorical analysis, which detects the linguistic forms used by authors to signal argumentative discourse moves. Initial results indicate that the refined subset derived from more complex concept extraction and rhetorically significant sentences, yields additional relevant clusters. Finally, we illustrate how the results of this analysis can be rendered as a visual analytics dashboard

Detection of Unusual Peritoneal Metastases of Prostate Cancer With 68Ga–Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen PET/CT

Peritoneal metastasis of prostate cancer (PC) is unusual site of metastatic disease; only limited case reports are published in literature. Ga-68-prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT is recently used for detection of PC metastasis with high accuracy rates. We present a case of a 68-year-old man with disseminated peritoneal metastases and abdominal metastatic lymph nodes of PC, demonstrated in Ga-68-PSMA PET/CT with intense PSMA uptake

The relationship between childhood traumas and aggression levels in adults

The effect of childhood traumas in adulthood psychopathology is considerable. There are studies indicating that there is cause and effect relation between adulthood aggression and childhood traumas. However, in Turkey, there are few studies on this subject. The results of these studies are controversial in some aspects. This research was designed to look into the relation between aggression level and childhood traumas in Turkish society. Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire were applied to 50 healthy individuals who were chosen randomly in Beylikduzu district of Istanbul province and who did not get any neuropsychiatric diagnosis. The childhood trauma levels of the participants were detected as significantly high but their aggression levels were detected as normal. A positive meaningful correlation was detected between the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire scores and Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire scores. These results are supporting the idea that childhood trauma may be among the predisposing factors of adulthood aggression. [Med-Science 2018; 7(3.000): 622-6

Detection of Unusual Peritoneal Metastases of Prostate Cancer With Ga-68-Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen PET/CT

Peritoneal metastasis of prostate cancer (PC) is unusual site of metastatic disease; only limited case reports are published in literature. Ga-68-prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT is recently used for detection of PC metastasis with high accuracy rates. We present a case of a 68-year-old man with disseminated peritoneal metastases and abdominal metastatic lymph nodes of PC, demonstrated in Ga-68-PSMA PET/CT with intense PSMA uptake