TRAUMATIC LESIONS OF EARS, NOSE AND PHARYNX

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Characterisation of MEAs for Electrochemical Energy Conversion Using an Easy Test Technique

The paper describes an EasyTest cell developed for simple, safe and inexpensive to run testing and optimisation of the active materials (catalysts, catalytic supports, polymer membrane electrolytes) and electrode structures utilized in PEM Fuel cells and Electrolysers. The main advantages of the new EasyTest technique are demonstrated by a comparative study on the performance of two types of membrane electrode assemblies for electrochemical energy conversion. Nafion and PBI-based polymer electrolyte membranes covered with catalytic layers containing 20 % Pt dispersed on carbon black (E-TEK, De Nora) are tested as hydrogen electrodes working in a fuel cell and an electrolyser mode at two characteristic temperatures, varying the total partial pressure in the cell. The PBI-based membrane electrode assembly (MEA) gives lower current densities compared to that containing Nafion, while its performance remains stable in a much broader potential range. At overpotentials of about = 300–350 mV the Nafion MEA reaches a limiting current density, while in the case of PBI-based MEA such an effect is not registered in the whole potential range tested

LEVER: Learning to Verify Language-to-Code Generation with Execution

The advent of pre-trained code language models (CodeLMs) has lead to significant progress in language-to-code generation. State-of-the-art approaches in this area combine CodeLM decoding with sample pruning and reranking using test cases or heuristics based on the execution results. However, it is challenging to obtain test cases for many real-world language-to-code applications, and heuristics cannot well capture the semantic features of the execution results, such as data type and value range, which often indicates the correctness of the program. In this work, we propose LEVER, a simple approach to improve language-to-code generation by learning to verify the generated programs with their execution results. Specifically, we train verifiers to determine whether a program sampled from the CodeLM is correct or not based on the natural language input, the program itself and its execution results. The sampled programs are reranked by combining the verification score with the CodeLM generation probability, and marginalizing over programs with the same execution results. On four datasets across the domains of table QA, math QA and basic Python programming, LEVER consistently improves over the base CodeLMs (4.6% to 10.9% with code-davinci-002) and achieves new state-of-the-art results on all of them.Comment: 23 page

Network analysis of a corpus of undeciphered Indus civilization inscriptions indicates syntactic organization

Archaeological excavations in the sites of the Indus Valley civilization (2500-1900 BCE) in Pakistan and northwestern India have unearthed a large number of artifacts with inscriptions made up of hundreds of distinct signs. To date there is no generally accepted decipherment of these sign sequences and there have been suggestions that the signs could be non-linguistic. Here we apply complex network analysis techniques to a database of available Indus inscriptions, with the aim of detecting patterns indicative of syntactic organization. Our results show the presence of patterns, e.g., recursive structures in the segmentation trees of the sequences, that suggest the existence of a grammar underlying these inscriptions.Comment: 17 pages (includes 4 page appendix containing Indus sign list), 14 figure

Using Synchronic and Diachronic Relations for Summarizing Multiple Documents Describing Evolving Events

In this paper we present a fresh look at the problem of summarizing evolving events from multiple sources. After a discussion concerning the nature of evolving events we introduce a distinction between linearly and non-linearly evolving events. We present then a general methodology for the automatic creation of summaries from evolving events. At its heart lie the notions of Synchronic and Diachronic cross-document Relations (SDRs), whose aim is the identification of similarities and differences between sources, from a synchronical and diachronical perspective. SDRs do not connect documents or textual elements found therein, but structures one might call messages. Applying this methodology will yield a set of messages and relations, SDRs, connecting them, that is a graph which we call grid. We will show how such a grid can be considered as the starting point of a Natural Language Generation System. The methodology is evaluated in two case-studies, one for linearly evolving events (descriptions of football matches) and another one for non-linearly evolving events (terrorist incidents involving hostages). In both cases we evaluate the results produced by our computational systems.Comment: 45 pages, 6 figures. To appear in the Journal of Intelligent Information System

IEC International Standards Under Development For Radiation-Generating Devices

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is the leading and oldest global organization with over 100 years history of developing and publishing international standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies, including radiation detection instrumentation. Subcommittee 45B 'Radiation Protection Instrumentation' of the IEC has recently started the development of two standards on radiation-generating devices. IEC 62463 'Radiation protection instrumentation--X-ray Systems for the Screening of Persons for Security and the Carrying of Illicit Items' is applicable to X-ray systems designed for screening people to detect if they are carrying objects such as weapons, explosives, chemical and biological agents and other concealed items that could be used for criminal purposes, e.g. terrorist use, drug smuggling, etc. IEC 62523 'Radiation protection instrumentation--Cargo/Vehicle radiographic inspection systems' applies to cargo/vehicle imaging inspection systems using accelerator produced X-ray or gamma radiation to obtain images of the screened objects (e.g. cargo containers, transport and passenger vehicles and railroad cars). The objective of both standards is to specify standard requirements and general characteristics and test procedures, as well as, radiation, electrical, environmental, mechanical, and safety requirements and to provide examples of acceptable methods to test these requirements. In particular the standards address the design requirements as they relate to the radiation protection of the people being screened, people who are in the vicinity of the equipment and the operators. The standard IEC 62463 does not deal with the performance requirements for the quality of the object detection. Compliance with the standards requirements will provide the manufacturers with internationally acceptable specifications and the device users with assurance of the rigorous quality and accuracy of the measurements in relation to the radiological safety of the equipment. The main characteristics of IEC 62463 and IEC 62523 standards are presented and as well as the IEC methodology of standard development and approval

Novel merwinite/akermanite ceramics: in vitro bioactivity

The ceramics in the system CaO – MgO – SiO2 has recently received a great deal of attention because they exhibit good in vitro bioactivity and have potential use as bone implants. Biphasic calcium-magnesium-silicate ceramics was prepared by a sol-gel method. The dried gel with chemical composition 3CaO.MgO.2SiO2 was thermally treated at 1300°C for 2 h. The structural behavior of the synthesized ceramics was examined by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Merwinite, as the main crystalline phase, and akermanite, as the minor phase, were identified. The in vitro bioactivity of the synthesized ceramic samples was recorded in Simulated Body Fluid (SBF) for different times of soaking. The apatite formation on the surface of the immersed samples was detected by FTIR, SEM and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) techniques. The ion concentrations in the SBF solutions after the in vitro test were evaluated by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). On the basis of the results obtained, the ability of the biphasic ceramics to deposit apatite layer was found. The peculiarities of the formation of apatite layer depending on the phase composition were analyzed and discussed

Creating language resources for under-resourced languages: methodologies, and experiments with Arabic

Language resources are important for those working on computational methods to analyse and study languages. These resources are needed to help advancing the research in fields such as natural language processing, machine learning, information retrieval and text analysis in general. We describe the creation of useful resources for languages that currently lack them, taking resources for Arabic summarisation as a case study. We illustrate three different paradigms for creating language resources, namely: (1) using crowdsourcing to produce a small resource rapidly and relatively cheaply; (2) translating an existing gold-standard dataset, which is relatively easy but potentially of lower quality; and (3) using manual effort with appropriately skilled human participants to create a resource that is more expensive but of high quality. The last of these was used as a test collection for TAC-2011. An evaluation of the resources is also presented

Melanoides tuberculata as intermediate host of Philophthalmus gralli in Brazil

Melanoides tuberculata that naturally harbored trematode larvae were collected at the Pampulha dam, Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais, Brazil), during malacological surveys conducted from 2006 to 2010. From 7,164 specimens of M. tuberculata collected, 25 (0.35%) were infected by cercariae, which have been morphologically characterized as belonging to the Megalurous group, genus Philophthalmus. Excysted metacercariae were used for successful experimental infection of Gallus gallus domesticus, and adult parasites recovered from the nictitating membranes of chickens were identified as Philophthalmus gralli. This is the first report of P. gralli in M. tuberculata in Brazil