Break it Down for Me: A Study in Automated Lyric Annotation

Comprehending lyrics, as found in songs and poems, can pose a challenge to human and machine readers alike. This motivates the need for systems that can understand the ambiguity and jargon found in such creative texts, and provide commentary to aid readers in reaching the correct interpretation. We introduce the task of automated lyric annotation (ALA). Like text simplification, a goal of ALA is to rephrase the original text in a more easily understandable manner. However, in ALA the system must often include additional information to clarify niche terminology and abstract concepts. To stimulate research on this task, we release a large collection of crowdsourced annotations for song lyrics. We analyze the performance of translation and retrieval models on this task, measuring performance with both automated and human evaluation. We find that each model captures a unique type of information important to the task.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of EMNLP 201

Interaction Issues in Computer Aided Semantic\ud Annotation of Multimedia

The CASAM project aims to provide a tool for more efficient and effective annotation of multimedia documents through collaboration between a user and a system performing an automated analysis of the media content. A critical part of the project is to develop a user interface which best supports both the user and the system through optimal human-computer interaction. In this paper we discuss the work undertaken, the proposed user interface and underlying interaction issues which drove its development

Template Adaptation for Face Verification and Identification

Face recognition performance evaluation has traditionally focused on one-to-one verification, popularized by the Labeled Faces in the Wild dataset for imagery and the YouTubeFaces dataset for videos. In contrast, the newly released IJB-A face recognition dataset unifies evaluation of one-to-many face identification with one-to-one face verification over templates, or sets of imagery and videos for a subject. In this paper, we study the problem of template adaptation, a form of transfer learning to the set of media in a template. Extensive performance evaluations on IJB-A show a surprising result, that perhaps the simplest method of template adaptation, combining deep convolutional network features with template specific linear SVMs, outperforms the state-of-the-art by a wide margin. We study the effects of template size, negative set construction and classifier fusion on performance, then compare template adaptation to convolutional networks with metric learning, 2D and 3D alignment. Our unexpected conclusion is that these other methods, when combined with template adaptation, all achieve nearly the same top performance on IJB-A for template-based face verification and identification

A disjunctive Prime Minister: assessing David Cameron’slegacy

David Cameron’s political career was cut short by last year’s dramatic Brexit vote. Chris Byrne, Nick Randall and Kevin Theakston look back on his time in office, and how the history books will judge him

Another look at products from plant materials

Chris Byrne - Professor, Western Kentucky University. One of the oldest processes for making engineered products is the pyrolysis of plant materials. Some of the earliest products were soot for coloring and charcoal for cooking. Charcoal manufacture became a major industry during the late 19th century when it was produced for the expanding steel industry. During that time the development of steel retorts also allowed distillation by-products to be captured which were sold as a variety of chemicals including wood alcohol, acetic acid and tars. Such processing largely ceased in developed countries in the 20th century owing to increasingly available coal and oil reserves. This presentation covered a new technology for utilizing plant pyrolysis to produce engineered - materials and/or biofuels. Controlled carbonization of wood is used to produce bio-templates for the subsequent manufacture of ceramics and carbon composites. Ceramic material production with this approach creates a refractory material containing a wood microstructure. The bio-template is also used to create carbon/carbon composites, sandwich composites, or simply activated to produce a monolithic filter. One product recently developed is a carbon-polymer composite as a substitute for endangered tropical woods such as Ebony and Blackwood. These materials were described along with recent research in the development of bio-fuels from wood distillation byproducts.Ope

The Role of Economic Assistance in Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland

External economic assistance from the International Fund for Ireland and the European Union Special Support Program for Peace and Reconciliation assisted in setting the context of the Northern Ireland peace agenda, and holds out the promise of a new civic culture. This article explores people’s perceptions of economic assistance of conflict amelioration in Northern Ireland. Some of the findings, in respect of inter-community differences in perceptions of the utility of external economic assistance in building the peace dividend, are discussed in the paper

Rheology of sludge in pour-flush toilets: understanding the requirements for pit emptying technology design

Pour-flush (PF) toilets are seen as bridging the gap between basic on-site sanitation and the water-borne sewerage systems that people aspire to. Limited studies have been conducted on the rheological properties of PF sludge, which are a key component in designing and selecting appropriate pit emptying equipment. Samples from active and standing PF leach pits were tested for moisture content and viscosity. The two variables were linked using the fresh faeces viscosity model (Woolley et al., 2014). A second model was used to demonstrate how the volume and moisture of material in standing PF leach pits changed over time. This showed that PF leach pits could be emptied using a pump within two months of active use. Alternatively, PF leach pits can be left for up to five years after which the volume will have reduced to 45 % of the original volume and can be dug out manually

A Prospective Pilot Study to Validate the Management Protocol for Patients Presenting with Acute Urinary Retention: A Community-Based, Nonhospitalised Protocol

Acute urinary retention (AUR) in males is managed conventionally by hospital admission, alpha-adrenergic therapy, and trial without catheter. To reduce inpatient bed pressures, we set up a protocol to manage such patients in the community. We review our results in this paper. We performed a prospective study of male patients presenting to our acute admissions ward and Accident and Emergency department over 6 months. Patients with chronic urinary retention, macroscopic haematuria, sepsis, urinary tract infection, and/or serum creatinine >130 mmol/l were excluded from the study. Those enrolled were catheterised, commenced on alfuzosin (10 mg nocte), and discharged to the community. A trial without catheter (TWOC) was performed 5—7 days later. QoL/IPSS, peak flow rate, and residual volume assessment were performed following successful TWOC 3 months later.Thirty-one male patients with a median age of 69 years were studied and the median residual volume following catheterisation was 900 ml. The aetiology of AUR was benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in 29 patients and constipation in the remaining 2 patients. TWOC was successful in 19 patients (61.3%) following first TWOC, 26 (83.9%) following second trial of voiding. The mean peak flow rate was 6.5 ml/sec and postvoid scan 165 ml, following an immediate TWOC. At 3 months follow-up, mean peak flow rate was 13.2 ml/sec, postvoid scan 26.5 ml, IPSS 4.5, and QoL score was 2. This study has shown that AUR can be managed safely and effectively in the community. Effective communication with the nurse urology specialist, general practitioner, and emergency department are crucial for the successful implementation of the protocol