Salomon: Automatic Abstracting of Legal Cases for Effective Access to Court Decisions

The SALOMON project is a contribution to the automatic processing of legal texts. Its aim is to automatically summarise Belgian criminal cases in order to improve access to the large number of existing and future cases. Therefore, techniques are developed for identifying and extracting relevant information from the cases. A broader application of these techniques could considerably simplify the work of the legal profession.A double methodology was used when developing SALOMON: the cases are processed by employing additional knowledge to interpret structural patterns and features on the one hand and by way of occurrence statistics of index terms on the other. As a result, SALOMON performs an initial categorisation and structuring of the cases and subsequently extracts the most relevant text units of the alleged offences and of the opinion of the court. The SALOMON techniques do not themselves solve any legal questions, but they do guide the user effectively towards relevant texts.     

Trematode hemoglobins show exceptionally high oxygen affinity

Ligand binding studies were made with hemoglobin (Hb) isolated from trematode species Gastrothylax crumenifer (Gc), Paramphistomum epiclitum (Pe), Explanatum explanatum (Ee), parasitic worms of water buffalo Bubalus bubalis, and Isoparorchis hypselobagri (Ih) parasitic in the catfish Wallago attu. The kinetics of oxygen and carbon monoxide binding show very fast association rates. Whereas oxygen can be displaced on a millisecond time scale from human Hb at 25 degrees C, the dissociation of oxygen from trematode Hb may require a few seconds to over 20 s (for Hb Pe). Carbon monoxide dissociation is faster, however, than for other monomeric hemoglobins or myoglobins. Trematode hemoglobins also show a reduced rate of autoxidation; the oxy form is not readily oxidized by potassium ferricyanide, indicating that only the deoxy form reacts rapidly with this oxidizing agent. Unlike most vertebrate Hbs, the trematodes have a tyrosine residue at position E7 instead of the usual distal histidine. As for Hb Ascaris, which also displays a high oxygen affinity, the trematodes have a tyrosine in position B10; two H-bonds to the oxygen molecule are thought to be responsible for the very high oxygen affinity. The trematode hemoglobins display a combination of high association rates and very low dissociation rates, resulting in some of the highest oxygen affinities ever observed.     

Intelligent Information Extraction from Legal Texts

Presently, we are confronted with an enormous amount of legal documents, which are increasingly recorded in electronic format. There is a need to make the information in legal texts easily and automatically accessible. In this paper we argue that in the legal field, where we are confronted with specific text types, knowledge about discourse structures and the linguistic cues that signal them is very valuable to incorporate in information extraction systems and in text processing systems in general. We also demonstrate the need for adequate formalisms for representing discourse patterns. However, intertextual analysis of texts that describes and explains the properties of text types and genres is underdeveloped in the legal field.     

Recent advances in non-probabilistic approaches for non-deterministic dynamic finite element analysis

Summary There is a growing awareness of the impact of non-deterministic model properties on the numerical simulation of physical phenomena. These non-deterministic aspects are of great importance when there is a large amount of information to be retrieved from the numerical analysis, as for instance in a numerical reliability study or reliability based optimisation during a design process. Therefore, the non-deterministic properties form a primordial part of a trustworthy virtual prototyping environment. The implementation of such a virtual prototyping environment requires the inclusion of non-deterministic properties in the numerical finite element framework. This articel gives an overview of the emerging non-probabilistic approaches for non-deterministic numerical analysis, and compares them to the classical probabilistic methodology. Their applicability in the context in engineering design is discussed. The typical implementation strategies applied in literature are reviewed. A new concept is introduced for the calculation of envelope frequency response functions. This method is explained in detail and illustrated on a numerical example.     

The thickness profile of ultra‐high molecular weight polyethylene films during sequential biaxial drawing

In this study, the evolution of the thickness profile of UHMW‐polyethylene films during sequential biaxial drawing is studied. The basic assumption is that a nonuniform thickness distribution of the drawn film is the result of the amplification of initial imperfections. Finite element simulations of the drawing process have been performed in which the drawing of a piece of film with a geometric imperfection is considered. For these numerical simulations, a viscoelastic model is adopted. Although the model does not describe the behavior of UHMW‐PE films in full detail, it is able to capture typical features of inhomogeneous deformation. The most striking observation is that severe localization occurs at the beginning of the second drawing step (i.e. in the direction transverse to the first step). In this stage of the drawing process, a localization band develops. These phenomena are also observed in validation experiments. A discrepancy between the simulations and the validation experiments is observed at the end of the drawing process. In the simulations, the deformation is stabilized again, and the resulting thickness profile is practically uniform. In the experiments however, the bad thickness profile at the beginning of the second drawing step is conserved up to the end of the drawing process. The simulations have been performed for different process parameters. Hence, it is possible to access the influence of these parameters on the evolution of the thickness profile. Furthermore, a suggestion is done to explain the deformation phenomena. The stability of the deformation can be determined from stress‐strain curves during the biaxial drawing process. It is concluded that, although no absolute values are acquired, trends are predicted correctly and they can serve as quidelines for process control.     

Back pain and its correlates among workers in family care

This study is based on the empirical fact that among nurses large variations occur not only in clinical competency but also in individual productivity. The article proposes that competency-based targeted staff development programs can improve productivity as well as nursing performance. Research presented here shows that the nurses on units using targeted staff development increased the time spent on professional and direct care and reduced nonprofessional and indirect care tasks in comparison to nurses on the control nursing unit.     

Validated measurements of the uranium isotopic signature in human urine samples using magnetic sector-field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Increased interest in measuring uranium isotope ratios in environmental samples (biological materials, soils, dust particles, water) has come from the necessity to assess the health impact of the use of depleted uranium (DU) based ammunitions during recent military conflicts (e.g., Gulf war, Kosovo) and from the need to identify nondeclared nuclear activities (nuclear safeguards). In this context, very important decisions can arise which have to be based on measurement data of nondisputable uncertainty. The present study describes the certification to 2.5% (k = 2) relative combined uncertainty of n(235U)/n(238U) at ultralow uranium levels (approximately 5-20 pg g(-1)) in human urine samples. After sample decomposition and matrix separation, the isotope ratios were measured by means of a single-detector magnetic sector-field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry instrument fitted with an ultrasonic nebulizer. Correction for mass discrimination effects was obtained by means of the certified isotopic reference material IRMM-184. The analytical procedure developed was validated in three complementary ways. First, all major sources of uncertainty were identified and propagated together following the ISO/GUM guidelines. Second, this quality was controlled with a matrix matching NUSIMEP-3 sample (approximately 0.06-0.7% difference from certified). Third, the instrumental part of the procedure was proven to be reproducible from the confirmation of the results obtained for three samples remeasured 7 months later (approximately 1.5% difference). The results obtained for 33 individuals indicated that none seemed to have been exposed to contamination by DU.     

An actuator disk method with tip‐loss correction based on local effective upstream velocities

This work aims at assessing the performance of a tip‐loss correction for advanced actuator disk (AD) methods coupled to large eddy simulation and making this correction possible in a wind farm configuration. The classical Glauert tip‐loss factor, commonly used in the blade element momentum method, is added here to correct the tip and the root induced velocities at the rotor. However, it requires a reference upstream velocity, which is problematic to define in complex flows, such as in wind farms. A methodology is proposed here to infer an effective upstream velocity local to each disk element, based on the one‐dimensional momentum theory and using only the local data at the rotor. This estimation is verified through a set of simulations, leading to good results in spite of the crude assumptions of the one‐dimensional momentum theory. This AD supplemented with the tip‐loss correction is compared with a high fidelity vortex particle‐mesh method, through the simulations in uniform wind of a constant circulation wind turbine and of a more realistic machine, the NREL‐5MW rotor. The results show that the AD behavior is clearly improved by the addition of a tip‐loss factor and the potential errors on the effective upstream velocity estimation have a moderate impact on the tip‐loss correction.