Discriminative graphical models for faculty homepage discovery

Faculty homepage discovery is an important step toward building an academic portal. Although the general homepage finding tasks have been well studied (e.g., TREC-2001 Web Track), faculty homepage discovery has its own special characteristics and not much focused research has been conducted for this task. In this paper, we view faculty homepage discovery as text categorization problems by utilizing Yahoo BOSS API to generate a small list of high-quality candidate homepages. Because the labels of these pages are not independent, standard text categorization methods such as logistic regression, which classify each page separately, are not well suited for this task. By defining homepage dependence graph, we propose a conditional undirected graphical model to make joint predictions by capturing the dependence of the decisions on all the candidate pages. Three cases of dependencies among faculty candidate homepages are considered for constructing the graphical model. Our model utilizes a discriminative approach so that any informative features can be used conveniently. Learning and inference can be done relatively efficiently for the joint prediction model because the homepage dependence graphs resulting from the three cases of dependencies are not densely connected. An extensive set of experiments have been conducted on two testbeds to show the effectiveness of the proposed discriminative graphical model.     

Serum creatine phosphokinase in thyroid disorders

The decreased serum levels of triiodothyroinine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) in hypothyroid patients is well established but whether there is any correlation of creatinephosphokinase (CPK) with hypothyroidism is not well established. There is a paucity of reference on this study. Therefore a study of serum CPK and thyroid profile was carried out in thyroid diseases. In hypothyroid patients T3, T4 levels in serum were found to be lowered with an increase level of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) associated with marked rise in serum CPK level. In hyperthyroid patients serum levels of T3, T4 were found to be increased with decrease in TSh with significant decrease in creatine phosphokinase level. Serum creatine phosphokinase levels thus show an inverse relation with serum T3, T4 levels.     

Blood lipid peroxidation products and antioxidants in senile cataract

Lipid peroxidation products and antioxidants were estimated in either blood, serum or erythrocytes of 25 cases of early and 25 of advanced senile (50–60 years) cataract and 30 persons of age matched healthy controls. Serum lipid peroxidation products (as malondialdehyde) were significantly higher in patients with early senile (0.25±0.05 μm/dl, P<0.05) and advanced senile cataract (0.29±0.05 μm/dl, P<0.001) as compared to healthy controls (0.22±0.07 μm/dl). Erythrocyte superoxide dismutase levels were lower in patients with early senile (730±60.5 units/gm Hb) and significantly lower in advanced senile (712±50.2 units/gm Hb, P<0.05) cataract than those in healthy controls (767±59.5 units/gm Hb). Serum α-tocopherol was significantly lower (P<0.05) in only advanced senile cataract (0.69±0.08 mg/dl) but not in early senile cataract (0.75±0.08 mg/dl) when compared with healthy controls (0.75±0.09 mg/dl). There was no significant difference in the erythrocyte concentration of reduced glutathione and serum levels of total proteins, β-carotene, vitamin A, ascorbic acid, calcium, magnesium and zinc.     

Effect of preoperative stress on serum lipoperoxide levels

To test the concept of intense psychogenic stress manifesting as organic lesion, effect of pre-operative stress on serum lipid peroxide levels in 30 otherwise healthy patients to undergo major abdominal elective surgery has been studied and compared with healthy controls. Significant elevations in serum lipid peroxide levels both on hospitalization and at pre-operative stage were noticed in comparison with healthy controls. However, serum lipid peroxide levels at pre-operative stage did not show significant fluctuations in comparison with those at the time of admission, suggestive of no probable further increment in autoxidation of unsaturated fatty acids of membrane lipids and proper handling by scavenging enzyme system.     

Developing strong transition-focused IEPS using labour market data

Employment rates and post-school transition outcomes for individuals with disabilities remain alarmingly low compared to peers without disabilities. Transition-Focused Individualized Education Plans (TF-IEPs) often centre on skills associated with employment experience opportunities that are immediately available to the individual with a disability. While the transition plans focus on the student's strengths and areas of interest, less attention is paid to the guidance and support a student might need in choosing a sustainable career. We contend that teams must develop transition plans with specific attention to projected labour market data. Using this information will ensure that we are preparing students with disabilities for long-term success. This article describes how school teams can use an in-depth labour market analysis to develop robust transition plans. These plans will prepare students for careers that will last far into the future.     

Archives and trails from the First World War: repurposing imperial records of North African and Indian soldiers in Palestine and Syria, 1917-1923

ABSTRACT

First World War scholars more or less agree on the limitations imposed by archival sources on the study of North African and Indian troops. Conventional methods to find ‘the voice’ of the soldier do not apply in this case and the scarcity of records partly explains why so little is written. So, what opportunities are there in such an endeavour? This article argues for the need to decolonise military archives from the Great War era. That is to say, to use information that was originally gathered to serve narrow military interests as a means to understand the war experiences of the colonial soldiers. These sources, largely official records, bearing stamps of the past regimes, cannot be separated from the context or intent of their production. Nonetheless, they must not be overlooked as new historiographical demands make it necessary to read colonial archives for evidence of their context. Failing to draw from, and reflect upon, colonial era records on the Great War, despite their shortcomings, is tantamount to condemning valuable aspects of global history to oblivion. In turn, acknowledging these shortcomings, paradoxically, lends greater value to such sources as the colonial context in which they were produced becomes observable.     

Gregory Bateson,Niklas Luhmann,and Ecological Communication

Cognizant of the evolving academic discipline of ecological communication (EC), I offer this essay as a follow-up to my previous publication—a critical exegesis of Niklas Luhmann's Ecological Communication (1989)—in this journal. Hoping to throw more light on Luhmann's formulations, I introduce and interpret those writings of Gregory Bateson that apparently influenced the former—and/or attempted to link ecology with communication. While I do not necessarily advocate either of these two thinkers' overall philosophical frameworks, I believe that they deserve attention—at the least insofar as they provide a measure of contrast to the contemporary academic discourse of EC (which remains shallow, intellectually parochial, and nonrigorous). That aside, many specific ideas developed by these two thinkers will interest a wide range of constituencies—especially those devoted to the study of information, communication, and ecology.