Exploring lexical patterns in text : lexical cohesion analysis with WordNet

We present a system for the linguistic exploration and analysis of lexical cohesion in English texts. Using an electronic thesaurus-like resource, Princeton WordNet, and the Brown Corpus of English, we have implemented a process of annotating text with lexical chains and a graphical user interface for inspection of the annotated text. We describe the system and report on some sample linguistic analyses carried out using the combined thesaurus-corpus resource

Kuration und Exploration des Korpus "Diskurs in der Weimarer Republik"

A single abstract from the DHd-2016 Book of Abstracts.Sofern eine editorische Arbeit an dieser Publikation stattgefunden hat, dann bestand diese aus der Eliminierung von Bindestrichen in Überschriften, die aufgrund fehlerhafter Silbentrennung entstanden sind, der Vereinheitlichung von Namen der Autor*innen in das Schema "Nachname, Vorname" und/oder der Trennung von Überschrift und Unterüberschrift durch die Setzung eines Punktes, sofern notwendig

Long-Term Quality of Life After Hepatic Resection: Health Is not Simply the Absence of Disease

Background: Due to advances in operative methods and perioperative care, mortality and morbidity following major hepatic resection have decreased substantially, making long-term quality of life (QoL) an increasingly prominent issue. We evaluated whether postoperative diagnosis was associated with long-term QoL and health in patients requiring hepatic surgery for benign or malignant disease. Methods: QoL was evaluated using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core-30 and the liver-specific QLQ-LMC21 module. Results: Between 2002 and 2006, 249 patients underwent hepatic surgery for malignant (76%) and benign (24%) conditions. One hundred thirty-five patients were available for QoL analysis after a mean of 26.5months. There was no statistical difference in global QoL scores between patients with malignant and benign diseases (p=0.367). Neither the extent of the resection (≥2 segments vs. <2 segments; p=0.975; OR=0.988; 95% CI=0.461-2.119) nor patient age had a significant influence on overall QoL (p=0.092). Conclusions: These results indicate that long-term QoL for patients who underwent liver resection for malignant disease is quite good and that a poor clinical prognosis does not seem to correlate with a poor Qo

Data Mining with Shallow vs. Linguistic Features to Study Diversification of Scientific Registers

We present a methodology to analyze the linguistic evolution of scientific registers with data mining techniques, comparing the insights gained from shallow vs. linguistic features. The focus is on selected scientific disciplines at the boundaries to computer science (computational linguistics, bioinformatics, digital construction, microelectronics). The data basis is the English Scientific Text Corpus (SCITEX) which covers a time range of roughly thirty years (1970/80s to early 2000s) (Degaetano-Ortlieb et al., 2013; Teich and Fankhauser, 2010). In particular, we investigate the diversification of scientific registers over time. Our theoretical basis is Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and its specific incarnation of register theory (Halliday and Hasan, 1985). In terms of methods, we combine corpus-based methods of feature extraction and data mining techniques

Burden of Bloodstream Infection Caused by Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase-Producing Enterobacteriaceae Determined Using Multistate Modeling at a Swiss University Hospital and a Nationwide Predictive Model

Objective. To obtain an unbiased estimate of the excess hospital length of stay (LOS) and cost attributable to extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) positivity in bloodstream infections (BSIs) due to Enterobacteriaceae. Design. Retrospective cohort study. Setting. A 2,200-bed academic medical center in Geneva, Switzerland. Patients. Patients admitted during 2009. Methods. We used multistate modeling and Cox proportional hazards models to determine the excess LOS and adjusted end-of-LOS hazard ratio (HR) for ESBL-positive and ESBL-negative BSI. We estimated economic burden as the product of excess LOS and average bed-day cost. Patient-level accounting data provided a complementary analysis of economic burden. A predictive model was fitted to national surveillance data. Results. Thirty ESBL-positive and 96 ESBL-negative BSI cases were included. The excess LOS attributable to ESBL-positive and ESBL-negative BSI was 9.4 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.4-18.4) and 2.6 (95% CI, 0.7-5.9) days, respectively. ESBL positivity was therefore associated with 6.8 excess days and CHF 9,473 per BSI. The adjusted end-of-LOS HRs for ESBL-positive and ESBL-negative BSI were 0.62 (95% CI, 0.43-0.89) and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.74-1.10), respectively. After reimbursement, the average financial loss per acute care episode in ESBL-positive BSI, ESBL-negative BSI, and control cohorts was CHF 48,674, 48,131, and 13,532, respectively. Our predictive model estimated that the nationwide cost of third-generation cephalosporin resistance would increase from CHF 2,084,000 in 2010 to CHF 3,526,000 in 2015. Conclusions. This is the first hospital-wide analysis of excess LOS attributable to ESBL positivity determined using multistate modeling to avoid time-dependent bias. These results may inform health-economic evaluations of interventions targeting ESBL contro

Life-Cycle Assessment of Chemical Production Processes: A Tool for Ecological Optimization

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) has gained in recent years widespread acceptance as an environmental management tool to assess and valuate the environmental impacts (resource consumption and emissions to nature) of products and processes, covering the whole life cycle from cradle (extraction of raw material) to grave (final disposal). Applied to chemical manufacturing, LCA allows to compare the ecological performance of synthesis processes, guide process developers to weak points and improvement options, and avoid suboptimizations. In our Consumer Care Chemicals Division, we apply LCA routinely to sales products as well as manufacturing-process chains, and we developed a specialized LCA computer system ECOSYS for that purpose. Material flow, energy, and waste data for all in-house manufacturing processes are extracted from our company data bases into ECOSYS. For meaningful comparisons of whole life cycles, we must include LCA results for the raw materials bought from other suppliers, and since such data are rarely available, appropriate estimation procedures were developed. The multitude of ecological burdens calculated over the life cycle can be judged and compared by a variety of valuation schemes, e.g. according to the Swiss BUW AL or the modern Eco-indicator 95 method. ECOSYS is not restricted to existing, operational processes, but allows the process developer to test his hypothetical designs (e.g. derived from a simulation tool) at a very early stage. If process alternatives use different raw materials, a narrow judgement on data for the process step alone may lead to suboptimization, whereas LCA results that consider all preceding syntheses of intermediates allow a more objective comparison. As an example, two synthesis paths for DNS (4,4?-dinitro-2,2?-stilbenedisulfonic acid disodium salt) were compared: The older, established route uses NaOCI in aqueous media as an oxidant, whereas the method more recently introduced in one of our production plants is based on air oxidation in liquid ammonia. The latter produces considerably less waste and is favorable with respect to many ecological parameters, including energy consumption, over the whole life cycle