scholarly journals Sustainability of Linguistic Resources Revisited

Author(s):  
Georg Rehm ◽  
Oliver Schonefeld ◽  
Thorsten Trippel ◽  
Andreas Witt

Data providers, users, and funders alike want and need sustainability of language resources (e.g. language corpora, grammars, etc.); sustainability requires making the resources available according to defined processes, platforms, or archives in a reproducible and reliable way. A three-year project on sustainability of linguistic resources conducted at Tübingen, Hamburg, and Potsdam illuminates some of the difficulties: the prevalence of stand-off markup (requiring a layer of specialized tools atop the XML stack), machine-generated XML of low clarity, ad hoc non-standard tag sets, discoverability, and selection criteria for long-term archiving. XML and other standards are necessary but not sufficient ingredients in the mix.

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 112-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Hostetter ◽  
Nadine Nakasawa ◽  
Kim Tompkins ◽  
Bradley Hill

Abstract Background: Long term venous catheters have been used to deliver specialized therapies since 1968. The ideal tip position of a central venous catheter provides reliable venous access with optimal therapeutic delivery, while minimizing short-and long-term complications. Ideal position limits have evolved and narrowed over time, making successful placement difficult and unreliable when depending exclusively on the landmark technique. Objective: To review and analyze contemporary literature and calculate an overall accuracy rate for first attempt placement of a PICC catheter in the ideal tip position. Methods: Key PICC placement terms were used to search the database PubMED-indexed for MEDLINE in June and October, 2009. The selection of studies required: a patient cohort without tip placement guidance technology; a documented landmark technique to place catheter tips; data documenting initial catheter placement and, that the lower third of the SVC and the cavo-atrial junction (CAJ) were included in the placement criteria. With few exceptions, articles written between 1993 and 2009 met the stated selection criteria. A composite of outcomes associated with tip placement was analyzed, and an overall percent proficiency of accurate catheter tip placement calculated. Results: Nine studies in eight articles met the selection criteria and were included for analysis. Rates of first placement success per study ranged from 39% to 75%, with the majority (7/9) being single center studies. The combined overall proficiency of these studies calculated as a weighted average was 45.87%.


2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 419-435
Author(s):  
Susanne Lochner ◽  
Katharina Kopp

Die Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung der Covid-19-Pandemie trafen Familien mit kleinen Kindern besonders hart: Ausgangsbeschränkungen, die Abriegelung von Spielplätzen und allem voran die Schließungen von Kinderbetreuungseinrichtungen stellten nicht nur den familiären Alltag auf den Kopf, sondern haben möglicherweise auch langfristige Folgen für die altersgerechte Entwicklung und den Kompetenzerwerb von Kindern. Dieser Beitrag widmet sich der Frage, welche Auswirkungen sich aus den Einschränkungen des Kita-­Betriebs in der Corona-Pandemie auf die Bildungsgerechtigkeit in der frühen Kindheit ergeben können. Da keine vergleichbaren historischen Ereignisse zur Prognose von potenziellen Auswirkungen herangezogen werden können, werden zum einen die Ergebnisse von Wirksamkeitsstudien zu institutionalisierter früher Bildung aufbereitet und zum anderen erste Befunde aus ad-hoc Erhebungen des ersten Lockdowns im Frühjahr 2020 analysiert. Bilanzierend werden aus den Befunden mögliche kurz-, mittel- und langfristige Auswirkungen abgeleitet, die Bildungsungerechtigkeit bereits in der frühen Kindheit verstärken können. Abstract: Educational Equality in the Crisis: What Impact does the Corona Pandemic have on Early Childhood Education? The actions taken to contain the Covid-19 pandemic hit families with young children particularly hard. Social restrictions, the closure of playgrounds and, above all, the lockdown of day-care facilities did not only turn everyday family life upside down, but could also have long-term consequences for child development and acquisition of skills. This article is devoted to the question of what effects the measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic can have on educational equality in early childhood. Since no comparable historical events can be used to forecast potential impacts, the results of efficacy studies on institutionalized early education are reported on the one hand and initial findings from ad-hoc surveys conducted during the first lockdown in spring 2020 are ana­lyzed on the other. The findings suggest short, middle and long-term effects of the corona measures taken that can intensify educational inequality in early childhood.


Paleobiology ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 120-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Fisher

Many questions have emerged recently regarding the importance and methodology of analysis of adaptation. Divergent views reflect both problems of definition and more substantive issues of interpretation. Defining the state of adaptation in terms of its contribution to current fitness, rather than origin by natural selection, is essential if natural selection is to be considered anexplanationof adaptation. The context dependency and relativity of fitness apply also to adaptation. Design criteria are essential components of adaptation, but only to the extent that they are subsumed as elements of the causal interactions determining relative reproductive potential. The local, relational, contingent character of adaptation supports only limited reference to improvement. Most long-term patterns of change can be better described as diffusion within a structured design-space than as progressive improvement of design. The analysis of adaptation is part of a broader inquiry into the processes and constraints that control form and the history of changing form. It offers one perspective on how organisms operate on ecological time scales and how their configurations might be maintained or transformed over evolutionary time. Hypotheses concerning adaptation are sometimes tested by reference to predictions concerning the central tendency or trend of some aspect of an anatomical-behavioral system. These can be interpreted with minimal reference to assumptions of optimality if the analysis is viewed in terms of Bayesian inference. However, an alternative and frequently preferable approach to testing relies on limit-oriented predictions. Analysis of adaptation can be visualized as inferring the pattern and nature of interactions comprising the causal plexus that determines fitness. A comprehensive understanding of form and form-change requires that this be integrated with the perspective offered by studies of development, genetics, phylogenetic history, and external perturbations acting on the system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (48) ◽  
Author(s):  
Françoise Renard ◽  
Aline Scohy ◽  
Johan Van der Heyden ◽  
Ilse Peeters ◽  
Sara Dequeker ◽  
...  

Background COVID-19-related mortality in Belgium has drawn attention for two reasons: its high level, and a good completeness in reporting of deaths. An ad hoc surveillance was established to register COVID-19 death numbers in hospitals, long-term care facilities (LTCF) and the community. Belgium adopted broad inclusion criteria for the COVID-19 death notifications, also including possible cases, resulting in a robust correlation between COVID-19 and all-cause mortality. Aim To document and assess the COVID-19 mortality surveillance in Belgium. Methods We described the content and data flows of the registration and we assessed the situation as of 21 June 2020, 103 days after the first death attributable to COVID-19 in Belgium. We calculated the participation rate, the notification delay, the percentage of error detected, and the results of additional investigations. Results The participation rate was 100% for hospitals and 83% for nursing homes. Of all deaths, 85% were recorded within 2 calendar days: 11% within the same day, 41% after 1 day and 33% after 2 days, with a quicker notification in hospitals than in LTCF. Corrections of detected errors reduced the death toll by 5%. Conclusion Belgium implemented a rather complete surveillance of COVID-19 mortality, on account of a rapid investment of the hospitals and LTCF. LTCF could build on past experience of previous surveys and surveillance activities. The adoption of an extended definition of ‘COVID-19-related deaths’ in a context of limited testing capacity has provided timely information about the severity of the epidemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 108 (Supplement_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
H Chaudhry ◽  
J Abiola

Abstract Introduction The Covid-19 pandemic has had a global impact on healthcare. As a result, changes have been made to healthcare provision. In the UK, the focus was changed to urgent and emergency treatment only, and therefore a shift from face-to-face consultations to video and telephone consultations was implemented. Our aim was to look at the telephone consultations in our oral and maxillofacial (OMF) department to identify their effectiveness. Method A search was carried out using the electronic patient record for patients booked for consultations in the OMF clinics from the 23rd of March to the 1st of May 2020. Trauma clinics and ad-hoc clinics were excluded. Results 21 clinic codes were found as suitable for inclusion. 185 consultations were booked during the 6-week period. Of these, 165 were via telephone and 20 face-to-face. A total of 75 consultations resulted in discharge and 110 required further follow up or further investigation. Of the 75 patients discharged, 73 of these were via telephone. The main reason for discharge was delivery of benign biopsy results. Conclusions Covid-19 will have long term impacts on healthcare provision. If implemented correctly, virtual consultations carry the potential in making healthcare more accessible.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Tani Sebro

This essay considers the case of uneven humanitarian aid distribution along the Thai-Myanmar border, where forcibly displaced migrants from Myanmar have been abandoned by the UNHCR and international humanitarian organizations. Based upon long-term ethnographic fieldwork along the Thai-Myanmar border amongst Tai migrants from the Shan State in Myanmar, I attend to the effects of the inequitable distribution of rights and privileges in an international humanitarian system that is predicated on the neoliberal logic of uneven development. After two centuries of British colonial occupation and later Burman authoritarian rule, the ethnic minority groups along the Thai-Myanmar border are now facing another crisis – that of abandonment as NGOs search for new and more pressing humanitarian disasters elsewhere. The essay addresses a concept I call uneven humanitarianism as a neocolonial condition for peoples living in the Thai-Myanmar borderlands by specifically focusing on Tai peoples who are living in unofficial refugee camps that lost foreign funding in 2017. I argue that the ad hoc treatment and eventual abandonment of these vulnerable groups – that are currently in the midst of the world’s most protracted civil war and displacement situation – constitutes a failure of the “responsibility to protect” humanitarian project.


2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Giustozzi

An assessment of the employment of mercenaries in Afghanistan gives mixed results. U.S. armed forces appear to have been happy with the Afghan Security Forces and ad hoc militias and only replaced them because of political reasons or because they felt that they were no longer needed. By contrast, the work of private security companies seems to have satisfied few. While in the short term no practical alternative to their use existed, it is not obvious that this option saves any money to the governments involved in the medium and long-term. Moreover, private security contractors are not subject to the control of military authorities, nor to military discipline. Their record of abusive behavior is indisputable and probably played a significant role in alienating the Afghan public. Unless much changes, the potential of private security companies in peacekeeping does not appear to be a bright one.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 462-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naoki Ikegami

Long-term care (LTC) must be carefully delineated when expenditures are compared across countries because how LTC services are defined and delivered differ in each country. LTC’s objectives are to compensate for functional decline and mitigate the care burden of the family. Governments have tended to focus on the poor but Germany opted to make LTC universally available in 1995/1996. The applicant’s level of dependence is assessed by the medical team of the social insurance plan. Japan basically followed this model but, unlike Germany where those eligible may opt for cash benefits, they are limited to services. Benefits are set more generously in Japan because, prior to its implementation in 2000, health insurance had covered long-stays in hospitals and there had been major expansions of social services. These service levels had to be maintained and be made universally available for all those meeting the eligibility criteria. As a result, efforts to contain costs after the implementation of the LTC Insurance have had only marginal effects. This indicates it would be more efficient and equitable to introduce public LTC Insurance at an early stage before benefits have expanded as a result of ad hoc policy decisions.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-110
Author(s):  
Adam Bartnicki ◽  
Andrzej Typiak ◽  
Rafał Typiak

Abstract Effective execution of tasks by remote-controlled engineering machine is dependent on the ability to run a way the machine operator. This is possible through the development an interface for remote both manipulation and perception. The paper presents results of elaboration of two types of interface. Portable desktop machine to control the implementation of ad-hoc tasks and landline operator position to achieve long-term jobs that require precise control of two-piece machine equipment: manipulator and loading.


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