Two-part Segmentation of Text Documents

We consider the problem of segmenting text documents that have a
two-part structure such as a problem part and a solution part. Documents
of this genre include incident reports that typically involve
description of events relating to a problem followed by those pertaining
to the solution that was tried. Segmenting such documents
into the component two parts would render them usable in knowledge
reuse frameworks such as Case-Based Reasoning. This segmentation
problem presents a hard case for traditional text segmentation
due to the lexical inter-relatedness of the segments. We develop
a two-part segmentation technique that can harness a corpus
of similar documents to model the behavior of the two segments
and their inter-relatedness using language models and translation
models respectively. In particular, we use separate language models
for the problem and solution segment types, whereas the interrelatedness
between segment types is modeled using an IBM Model
1 translation model. We model documents as being generated starting
from the problem part that comprises of words sampled from
the problem language model, followed by the solution part whose
words are sampled either from the solution language model or from
a translation model conditioned on the words already chosen in the
problem part. We show, through an extensive set of experiments on
real-world data, that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art
text segmentation algorithms in the accuracy of segmentation, and
that such improved accuracy translates well to improved usability
in Case-based Reasoning systems. We also analyze the robustness
of our technique to varying amounts and types of noise and empirically
illustrate that our technique is quite noise tolerant, and
degrades gracefully with increasing amounts of noise

Entity Linking for Web Search Queries

We consider the problem of linking web search queries to entities from a knowledge base such as Wikipedia. Such linking enables converting a user’s web search session to a footprint in the knowledge base that could be used to enrich the user profile. Traditional methods for entity linking have been directed towards finding entity mentions in text documents such as news reports, each of which are possibly linked to multiple entities enabling the usage of measures like entity set coherence. Since web search queries are very small text fragments, such criteria that rely on existence of a multitude of mentions do not work too well on them. We propose a three-phase method for linking web search queries to wikipedia entities. The first phase does IR-style scoring of entities against the search query to narrow down to a subset of entities that are expanded using hyperlink information in the second phase to a larger set. Lastly, we use a graph traversal approach to identify the top entities to link the query to. Through an empirical evaluation on real-world web search queries, we illustrate that our methods significantly enhance the linking accuracy over state-of-the-art methods.

Parent education and home-based behaviour analytic intervention: an examination of parents' perceptions of outcome

There is convincing evidence that applied behaviour analysis (ABA) offers a highly effective form of intervention for children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). There is less evidence, however, about how parents perceive and evaluate ABA programmes. In this paper an examination of parents’ perceptions of outcome is reported. Twenty-two questionnaires were completed by two groups of parents. The first group had just completed an introductory course in ABA and were in the early stages of implementing ABA programmes with their children. The second group had been involved in ABA education for more than 2 years. Overall, both groups of parents reported a positive impact of ABA on the lives of their children, their family life, and themselves. The long- term group reported that they had achieved complex goals with their children, whilst the short-term group reported an immediate positive impact on child and family functioning and parental self-esteem. Conclusions are drawn in the context of evidence-based practice.

A descriptive study of the usage of spinal manipulative therapy techniques within a randomised clinical trial in acute low back pain

The majority of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of spinal manipulative therapy have not adequately de?ned the terms ‘mobilization’ and ‘manipulation’, nor distinguished between these terms in reporting the trial interventions. The purpose of this study was to describe the spinal manipulative therapy techniques utilized within a RCT of manipulative therapy (MT; n=80), interferential therapy (IFT; n=80), and a combination of both (CT; n=80) for people with acute low back pain (LBP). Spinal manipulative therapy was de?ned as any ‘mobilization’ (low velocity manual force without a thrust) or ‘manipulation’ (high velocity
thrust) techniques of the spine described by Maitland and Cyriax.
The 16 physiotherapists, all members of the Society of Orthopaedic Medicine, utilized three spinal manipulative therapy patterns in the RCT: Maitland Mobilization (40.4%, n=59), Maitland Mobilization/Cyriax Manipulation (40.4%, n=59) and Cyriax Manipulation (19.1%, n=28). There was a signi?cant difference between the MT and CT groups in their usage of spinal manipulative therapy techniques (w2=9.178; df=2;P=0.01); subjects randomized to the CT group received three times more Cyriax Manipulation (29.2%, n=21/72) than those randomized to the MT group (9.5%, n=7/74; df=1; P=0.003).
The use of mobilization techniques within the trial was comparable with their usage by the general population of physiotherapists in Britain and Ireland for LBP management. However, the usage of manipulation techniques was considerably higher than reported in physiotherapy surveys and may re?ect the postgraduate training of trial therapists.

Identity issues for looked after children with no knowledge of their origins - Implications for research and practice

In the area of child care policy and practice, the benefits for children who are separated from their birth parents of maintaining some form of connection with their family of origin is now widely accepted. The arguments in support of this are found mainly in research concerning adoption and stem from four inter-related themes: children's rights to know of their heritage and background; parents' rights to information about the well-being of their children; the benefits of having knowledge about origins; and concerns about the impact of not knowing. The effects on the developing identities of those who, for various reasons, are unlikely ever to know the details of their birth parent(s) is an under-researched issue. Karen Winter and Olivia Cohen use a case study to illustrate some of the gaps concerning knowledge in this area. They argue that there is much to be learnt from the development of research projects which have as their focus the accounts of children and young people, from a wide range of care arrangements, regarding identity issues where they have no connections with or knowledge about their birth parent(s).

International order flows: Explaining equity and exchange rate returns

Macroeconomic models of equity and exchange rate returns perform poorly at high frequencies. The proportion of daily returns that these models explain is essentially zero. Instead of relying on macroeconomic determinants, we model equity price and exchange rate behavior based on a concept from microstructure – order flow. The international order flows are derived from belief changes of different investor groups in a two-country setting. We obtain a structural relationship between equity returns, exchange rate returns and their relationship to home and foreign equity market order flow. To test the model we construct daily aggregate order flow data from 800 million equity trades in the U.S. and France from 1999 to 2003. Almost 60% of the daily returns in the S&P100 index are explained jointly by exchange rate returns and aggregate order flows in both markets. As predicted by the model, daily exchange rate returns and order flow into the French market have significant incremental explanatory power for the daily S&P returns. The model implications are also validated for intraday returns.