Overview of the ShARe/CLEF eHealth Evaluation Lab 2014

This paper reports on the 2nd ShARe/CLEFeHealth evaluation lab which continues our evaluation resource building activities for the medical domain. In this lab we focus on patients' information needs as opposed to the more common campaign focus of the specialised information needs of physicians and other healthcare workers. The usage scenario of the lab is to ease patients and next-of-kins' ease in understanding eHealth information, in particular clinical reports. The 1st ShARe/CLEFeHealth evaluation lab was held in 2013. This lab consisted of three tasks. Task 1 focused on named entity recognition and normalization of disorders; Task 2 on normalization of acronyms/abbreviations; and Task 3 on information retrieval to address questions patients may have when reading clinical reports. This year's lab introduces a new challenge in Task 1 on visual-interactive search and exploration of eHealth data. Its aim is to help patients (or their next-of-kin) in readability issues related to their hospital discharge documents and related information search on the Internet. Task 2 then continues the information extraction work of the 2013 lab, specifically focusing on disorder attribute identification and normalization from clinical text. Finally, this year's Task 3 further extends the 2013 information retrieval task, by cleaning the 2013 document collection and introducing a new query generation method and multilingual queries. De-identified clinical reports used by the three tasks were from US intensive care and originated from the MIMIC II database. Other text documents for Tasks 1 and 3 were from the Internet and originated from the Khresmoi project. Task 2 annotations originated from the ShARe annotations. For Tasks 1 and 3, new annotations, queries, and relevance assessments were created. 50, 79, and 91 people registered their interest in Tasks 1, 2, and 3, respectively. 24 unique teams participated with 1, 10, and 14 teams in Tasks 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The teams were from Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, and North America. The Task 1 submission, reviewed by 5 expert peers, related to the task evaluation category of Effective use of interaction and targeted the needs of both expert and novice users. The best system had an Accuracy of 0.868 in Task 2a, an F1-score of 0.576 in Task 2b, and Precision at 10 (P@10) of 0.756 in Task 3. The results demonstrate the substantial community interest and capabilities of these systems in making clinical reports easier to understand for patients. The organisers have made data and tools available for future research and development.

Biodiesel production from non-edible beauty leaf (Calophyllum Inophyllum) oil : process optimization using response surface methodology (RSM)

In recent years, the beauty leaf plant (Calophyllum Inophyllum) is being considered as a potential 2nd generation biodiesel source due to high seed oil content, high fruit production rate, simple cultivation and ability to grow in a wide range of climate conditions. However, however, due to the high free fatty acid (FFA) content in this oil, the potential of this biodiesel feedstock is still unrealized, and little research has been undertaken on it. In this study, transesterification of beauty leaf oil to produce biodiesel has been investigated. A two-step biodiesel conversion method consisting of acid catalysed pre-esterification and alkali catalysed transesterification has been utilized. The three main factors that drive the biodiesel (fatty acid methyl ester (FAME)) conversion from vegetable oil (triglycerides) were studied using response surface methodology (RSM) based on a Box-Behnken experimental design. The factors considered in this study were catalyst concentration, methanol to oil molar ratio and reaction temperature. Linear and full quadratic regression models were developed to predict FFA and FAME concentration and to optimize the reaction conditions. The significance of these factors and their interaction in both stages was determined using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The reaction conditions for the largest reduction in FFA concentration for acid catalysed pre-esterification was 30:1 methanol to oil molar ratio, 10% (w/w) sulfuric acid catalyst loading and 75 °C reaction temperature. In the alkali catalysed transesterification process 7.5:1 methanol to oil molar ratio, 1% (w/w) sodium methoxide catalyst loading and 55 °C reaction temperature were found to result in the highest FAME conversion. The good agreement between model outputs and experimental results demonstrated that this methodology may be useful for industrial process optimization for biodiesel production from beauty leaf oil and possibly other industrial processes as well.

Complexity Development Theory and enterprise development at the bottom of the pyramid

In 2001 45% (2.7 billion) of the world’s population of approximately 6.1 billion lived in ‘moderate poverty’ on less than US $ 2 per person per day (World Population Summary, 2012). In the last 60 years there have been many theories attempting to explain development, why some countries have the fastest growth in history, while others stagnate and so far no way has been found to explain the differences. Traditional views imply that development is the aggregation of successes from multiple individual business enterprises, but this ignores the interactions between and among institutions, organisations and individuals in the economy, which can often have unpredictable effects. Complexity Development Theory proposes that by viewing development as an emergent property of society, we can help create better development programs at the organisational, institutional and national levels. This paper asks how the principals of CAS can be used to develop CDT principals used to develop and operate development programs at the bottom of the pyramid in developing economies. To investigate this research question we conduct a literature review to define and describe CDT and create propositions for testing. We illustrate these propositions using a case study of an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) Program for existing and nascent entrepreneurs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We found evidence that all the principals of CDT were related to the characteristics of CAS. If this is the case, development programs will be able to select which CAS needed to test these propositions.

Influence of visible work activity on drivers’ speed choice at roadworks

Vehicle traffic through roadwork sites creates a hazardous work environment, with speed limit noncompliance a major contributor to the high risk and high severity of roadwork crashes. This paper examines responses to an online survey to better understand the factors underlying drivers’ work zone speed choices. Drivers’ stated speed choice was compared between two photographs of the same work zone section – one with workers and machinery present and another with no visible activity. Drivers also provided comments on any aspect of roadwork safety they thought was important. A paired t-test of stated speed choice revealed that significantly lower mean speeds were nominated when workers and machinery were clearly present and active (41.7 vs 53.5 km/h, p<0.01). Participants expressed concern about roadwork signage and reduced speed limits being left in place when there was no apparent work activity. Driver perceptions, and thus compliance, may be improved through technological and operational changes.

Editors review of 'Research in early childhood education for sustainability : international perspectives and provocations'

Mounting concerns about climate change and unsustainable development, and their current and future impacts on all of us – but particularly on children - provided the impetus for this book. Then, as researchers in early childhood education (ECE) and/or education for sustainability (EfS), we used these concerns to shape and question our thinking. This first-ever research text in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) was advanced when the chapter authors, almost all of whom participated in one or both Transnational Dialogues in Research in Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (Stavanger, Norway, 2010, and Brisbane, Australia, 2011) met for the first time - a critical mass of researchers from vastly different parts of the globe - Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand at the inaugural meeting, with participants from Korea, Japan and Singapore attending the second. We came together to debate, discuss and share ideas about research and theory in the emerging field of ECEfS. An agreed-upon outcome of the Dialogues was this text.