Category: 2017 Charity Insights

What does this sentence mean?

If you understand what you have read so far in this post, then you would definitely know the difference between the sentences ‘GDP rose in 2015’ and ‘GDP rose consistently from 2010 to 2015.’ So would a Natural Language Processing (NLP) programme. Some NLP programmes might even one-up us mere mortals by giving the ‘dependency parsing’, ‘parts of speech tags’, ‘named entities’ and other sentences attributes that only learned and esteemed linguistic practitioners like Noam Chomsky, George Orwell and Donald Trump would understand.

Well, NLP programmes (or at least the one we’re currently using) might be able to parse a claim like ‘GDP growth averaged 7.3% under the previous Labour administration’ (warning: fake news; please don’t take this statistic for truth) and flood you with a deluge of sentence attributes. But they are currently unable to understand what this claim entails, and more importantly, the data that should be sought to verify this claim. NLP has yet to advance to the point whereby it can take in any sentence ever conceivable by humans and spit out all the intricacies and subtleties in the sentence. And so we currently have to make do with humans to bridge the gap.

We looked through a database of claims that were made (solely) regarding GDP and identified the ones whose sentence structures were more common. These sentences were then parsed by the NLP programme that we used, which would output the words in the sentence that corresponded to certain parts of speech / categories. For example, ‘GDP rose consistently from 2010 to 2015’ would give us ‘GDP’ as the ‘topic’, ‘rose’ as the ‘verb’ (or type of flower), ‘consistently’ as the ‘checking_modifier’ (a more glorified term for ‘adverb’) and the years 2010 and 2015 as ‘time’. We could then link certain outputs to specific data that we had to obtain to factcheck the claims. As with any other human endeavor, we are making progress in this area. Our current idea is not to factcheck all claims regarding GDP that are made by Jeremy Corbyn, The Sun or Lord Buckethead, but rather the claims that happen more often in the media.

Fingers crossed, we should get an initial working prototype by next week.

 

Unforgettable experience – The last week at Marches Energy Agency

All good thing has come to an end, as my journey at MEA reaches its destination day by day I feel more and more emotional like I am already missing the place. So much things happened in the past four weeks, apart from demonstrating my research results and learning from my colleague I also managed to show them how bad an ‘Asian flush’ can get (I will never drink with an empty stomach again). Anyway, let me tell you what happened in my last few days at MEA.

The last week was quite rough to be honest, apart from doing the planned charity research I was also assigned to do some document classification and research work. This happens because one of my supervisor was quite happy with my presentation at week 3 and decided to let me help him prepare some materials for future meetings. Although I had to work extra hours at my home it’s always better to be busy and excited for the big finale. At the moment MEA is interested in the work of other charities that share the same goal, especially in their project and funding information. My job is to identify successful and interesting service of those organisation and evaluate the potential for MEA to learn from them. Apart from general service like helplines and energy advisor, some organisations offer local energy workshop and work with school to teach students about green energy. Considering the Shrewsbury high school is close by this could be one of the many service MEA offers the future. Also, Because Shrewsbury is not a large city so the funding can be a limited factor, some charities not only receive fund from government but also from companies and larger organisation. Although it’s usually not as awesome as government funding it’s enough to hold local events. More advanced charity (mainly locate in London) can even offer heat screen service to detect heat loss level and gives out EPC, but it might be too much for the present MEA, and many more. For the document work it’s more general, since I did research before it’s just time consuming, no big problems raised.

As I wrote those down the time just pasted Thursday midnight and now is Friday. I am going to deliver my final project to the team and throw a small pizza party for lunch. Can’t believe this is the last day of work. I will never forget the time I spent here and will miss it very much.

Week 2

Week 2 is now over and I’m happy to say I’ve achieved more than I thought in the second week. After all the research I had completed in the first week it was time to organise some ideas and start building up the presentations. This was harder than I first thought.

When first started compiling different parts of my research into a presentation I realised there was a bit more to it than just adding information. The trickiest part I’ve been finding to achieve is  conveying the devastating effects that neuro-disability has on people’s lives whilst maintaining a light-hearted, fun presentation for the children. Another obstacle that I’ve encountered is trying to cater the presentations to the different age groups and academic levels in schools. Researching school curriculums and contacting old teachers has helped significantly in overcoming this hurdle.

My project has also required me to show a creative side to myself, which I didn’t even know existed, when trying to design and come up with interactive games or activities that can involve the children. I had been brainstorming some ideas with my supervisor, but now that she’s gone away on holiday I’m having to come up with the ideas myself which is a lot more difficult than you may think.

So, after the second week I’ve managed to finish a rough version of my presentations aimed at secondary school kids in the years 7-8 and 9-10 whilst simultaneously discovering my creative side, it’s been great.

Am I saving lives yet?

It’s Wednesday, time 23:21. I ‘m sitting in the kitchen, reflecting on the past three days. That’s it so far – only three days at Anthony Nolan*. How is it possible that I feel so different than on a Sunday evening?

Are you thinking of doing an internship in a charity? Let me tell you how you’d feel. At the beginning, you are extremely excited. You plan your project, it seems to be the most groundbreaking thing in the world and you cannot wait to pursue it. Then Sunday comes, and you are supposed to start work on Monday morning. Am I good enough? Will they give me anything to do? Is my project really helpful for the charity? Do I have enough skills to work in a place like that? You’ve never done something like that before, so stress gets you and you may even think that it would be better if you just spent your summer working in a pub close to your home.

I can also tell you how you’d feel after the first few days in the Charity.  You will come back home from work after going for drinks with your coworkers, you’ll see your flatmates and when they ask you: “how’s work?”, you’ll honestly say: “it’s loads of work but it’s amazing, I am so happy to be there!’. The excitement is back, you are full of energy and ideas and you are proud of your decision to apply for the Charity Insights Programme.

 

*Anthony Nolan is a charity that saves lives of people with blood cancer. It was the world’s first register that matched donors of blood stem cells or bone marrow to people with blood disorders that desperately needed life-saving transplants. Currently, there are more than 600,000 potential donors on the register. The foundation raises awareness, educates and provides information about the register and donation. Furthermore, they conduct world-class research which leads to improved success rates of transplants and better quality of support provided to patients. Their integration of scientific research with raising awareness, finding donors and supporting patients is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of their work in helping people with blood disorders. I am currently working with The Register Development Team, which recruits donors through a number of different channels and is now looking for new ways to expand this and reach their ambitious objective of recruiting 100,000 stem cell donors per year.

My first week is focused on getting to know everyone, learning about different departments, preparing my first report (organizing an “Away Day” for the team), analyzing their recruitment strategies, participations in meetings for the upcoming projects. It is incredible. Highlights? Being the part of a life-saving process, getting all the stationary I could ever only dreamt about,  going for drinks with coworkers after the 2nd day of work, yoga with coworkers after the 3rd day of work and the list of projects and things I got from my coordinator to work on!

PS. They made me a coffee. Am I even an intern?

Name that tractor!?

Week 1 completed, that’s 25% of my internship. Sacrewell farm is now ~0.5% closer to the public unveiling of their collection.

The William Scott Abott Trust is an agricultural education charity with a visitor’s centre near Peterborough. This idyllic site, with its 18th century water mill, charismatic staff and farmyard animals, is my office for 4 weeks. What a hardship for me to bare! Leisurely walking round the 550 acre organic fields and visiting the alpaca on my lunch break.

When I’m not enjoying the beautiful setting I am focused on cataloguing their collection of farm equipment. Ranging from a 7m long hay baler machine to a 20cm spanner. The collection has been growing steadily with no official system of storing or identifying the objects. Much of it has been untouched for years, encrusted with dirt and entwined with weeds. There is a race against time to save the objects from the weather and arrange them a permanent home at the farm where they can be enjoyed by the public.

        

STEP 1: set up a cataloguing system

I sought help from the Museum of English Rural Life, Reading. I met with the Assistant Curator, who was extremely knowledgeable and keen to share their successful cataloguing system. As I am starting Scarewell’s cataloguing system from scratch I am using Microsoft Excel for its adaptability and ease of use, plus it’s free!

STEP 1.5: unforeseen problems

The week also involved a ‘fun’ afternoon of clearing the rubble/weeds/dried leaves from the collection storage areas in 32*C. It was worth the mess and dust filled air as it uncovered a few hidden treasures.

STEP 2: identify objects using my own knowledge & online research

This is when I really began to imagine how things were used on the farm. They ceased being just rusty and rotten objects and became tools which farmers spent hours using to work the land and bring food to our tables.

NEXT WEEK

STEP 3: get second opinions and correctly identify all objects

The project is progressing faster than I had anticipated. Great news as I can dig deeper into the storage areas and identify more objects from the seemingly infinite collection…

…STEP 4: grow the archive

The week ended Friday afternoon with my laptop and camera giving up the ghost simultaneously. Thank goodness I had been backing up my work! This blog comes to you from a fully repaired laptop. Bring on week 2!

Spending my daytimes at London Nightline

London Nightline are a charity providing a confidential listening, emotional support and practical information service to London’s students. London Nightline began in 1971 where it was modelled around the Samaritan’s with the key difference that all volunteers are students and the service is tailored to students needs. Nightline was set up as a response to a spate of student suicides at Imperial. Originally based in South Kensington and known as West London Nightline the charity then spread to address the needs of students across the city.

You can visit their website here: http://nightline.org.uk/

 

The aim of my time at Nightline is to interview volunteers and service users about their experiences. These responses will be used to create a report of recommendations to improve how the charity handles various aspects of how it runs from volunteer training through to the policies and procedures which are used to govern the way we take calls. In addition, I will use people’s responses to create some publicity to help recruit next year’s cohort of volunteers.

 

My first week has involved putting in the groundwork by designing the interview questions, contacting volunteers and service users to arrange interviews and drafting the report structure. Also, I have looked at existing feedback from the volunteer end of year survey and caller feedback form. The aim of my interviews is to expand on areas for improvement shown in these existing forms of feedback. The process of looking through existing feedback has also highlighted the need to improve the way the charity collects feedback. To address this, I’ve designed a new feedback form for the website which will automatically collect feedback into coherent and useful data.

 

Next week I’m going to start interviewing volunteers and from then the project should be in full swing!

Am I in Google?

The green chairs are my favourite

My first impression when waking into Nesta’s main office was: “Am I in Google?” From the colourful shapes and designs spread across the walls to the couches by the window overlooking the OXO Tower, it felt like I had stepped into the hippest Silicon Valley start up by a recent Stanford graduate in the world. And this feeling was only reaffirmed throughout the week.

Nesta’s work, put simply, is innovation. They aim to take ground breaking ideas and make them a reality, covering pretty much all topics imaginable, like healthcare, democracy and policy-making. My personal focus for the next 4 weeks will be a mixture of investigating personal data economy and digital democracy, which is the coolest project I’ve ever done.

Of course, I started by just reading through a mountain of documents trying to wrap my head around some of the complex data science concepts that were going to be my bread and butter for the next month (disclaimer: I still don’t fully understand them). I was even able to attend interviews so I could hear from the experts themselves, which was incredibly revealing. Never have I learnt so much about a topic in so little time (if you don’t count exams week).

Peppered throughout my week were coffee breaks with various employees. Although some did invite me to a hot chocolate and therefore I might be biased, I can say they were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. They took time from their busy schedules to tell me about their research topics and I can honestly say after hearing them talk, I would like to do an internship with every single one of them.

I hope- no, I know, that in the weeks to come I will get to meet some more amazing people and learn even more about the world of politics and data science, and of course some more hot chocolate would be nice.

 

Highlight of the week: Watching a Wimbledon match whilst having strawberries and cream during our lunch break on the 6th floor terrace overlooking the River Thames.

Is this sentence structure simple?

Sentence structure is central to human language. We understand the difference between the sentences: “Sam is happy because he won the Lottery.” and “Won the Lottery, Sam is happy.” The former follows the rules of the English language; the latter is more likely to be spoken by Yoda in Star Wars.

We are able to understand such simple sentences as well as more complicated ones. However, how do we ensure that a computer (or SkyNet) is able to do so?

Well, this is the job of Natural Language Processing, or NLP for short. My job at Full Fact involves improving their automated factchecking process, and this entails using NLP to process whatever claims that politicians, journalists etc. might make.

If you haven’t read my previous post, our factchecking process can be narrowed down to 3 stages: the first involves using NLP to process the claim while the second involves going to the relevant websites, such as the Office for National Statistics, to get the relevant data. At the last stage, we would present the simplified data in a way that is easy for all of mankind to understand.

This week, much of our focus was on the bridge between the first and the second stage. While it might seem feasible on paper, NLP presently has yet to reach the capabilities of Jarvis, Tony Stark’s ultracapable artificial intelligence in Iron Man. We focused on obtaining the keywords from sentences such as ‘GDP rose in 2015’ and then linking these keywords to claims of a certain type. The latter gives us an idea of what data to obtain from the ONS website and then present.

We are still working on this ‘bridge’. While our NLP programme understands a simple sentence like ‘GDP rose in 2015’, it encounters trouble for more complicated sentences like ‘GDP has been rising consistently from 2010 to 2015’. Hopefully this ‘bridge’ in the future would as strong and stable as London Bridge.

Writing an assessment is harder than you think!

I am now 2 weeks into my time at Team Up! I am into the full swing of tube commutes and office work. But for the more interesting part of my experience: I have almost completed the first section of my project, in which I am creating a new set of mathematics assessment materials. I will soon be moving onto the second half of the project, which will be based on updating and amending the current lesson plans. For this period, I will have more free range and control over how things develop, mostly because my supervisor is away on holiday!

So far, I have been working alongside said supervisor and, for two days a week, another volunteer. Firstly, I researched the current GCSE specifications and determined the knowledge required for each grade (or ‘level’ as they are now referred to, just to make things that little bit more confusing). I then cross referenced this with GCSE exam paper questions to produce a bank of example questions. This was all very time-consuming and took up the most part of my first week.

One of the main problems we faced when producing Team Up’s assessment was that we only had a maximum of 1.5 hours to test the students. The actual GCSE examinations consist of 3 hour-long papers, meaning that we only had half the assessment time. Because of this we had to be selective with the topics we chose to assess in order to try to test as much of the syllabus as possible.

We also had to consider the grades that the students were hoping to achieve. The students that Team Up works with are generally pushing towards achieving a grade 5 at GCSE (a high C/low B). A foundation tier paper allows students to achieve a maximum grade 5. To avoid restricting the students’ achievements, Team Up had proposed an assessment allowing students to achieve up to a grade 6 (high B). To achieve this without having to introduce higher tier content we looked at the breakdown of the different assessment objectives (put simply, how many easy/hard questions there are on the paper) in both the higher and lower tier papers and chose an intermediate weighting to allow higher ability students to show off their skills.

So far, the main learning point for me is the amount of work that goes into setting assessments. There are so many different restrictions and objectives to meet, let alone coming up with suitable questions! Throughout all of this you need to be guessing what the students of different abilities will/will not understand. There is no set formula for a grade 6 on a paper, when an exam board sets this they already have all the marks for the paper and use these to inform their decision. Trying to do this backwards as we are is very difficult!

Week 1

Despite being a 1st year Biology student, the amount of knowledge I have regarding neuroscience and neuro-disability is basic to say the most, much like the majority of the younger generation since the wonders of the brain and its workings are not a majorly touched on in the school curriculum.

The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability is an awe inspiring charity that provides specialist care for patients with neuro-disability and aims not only to rehabilitate patients but to improve their quality of life as a whole. For my project I will be working with the RHN with the aim of producing a toolbox of presentations that the hospital can use when visiting schools to raise awareness for the neuro-disability and the work of the charity, some of which will also be presented by myself.

My first day at the charity was smoother and more comfortable than expected. On my first day I was given a desk, introduced to colleagues and given a tour of the beautiful 18th century building. During the tour I was shown some of the therapy rooms and computer rooms which contained lots of new and exciting technology such as eye gaze machines (tracks pupil movement to communicate) and different controls on computers that can be adapted depending on the mobility of the patients.

The first week consisted heavily of research on the charity, neuro-disability and the brain which I need to include in the presentations. The research was fairly independent however my supervisor also has a wealth of knowledge on everything to do with the charity and neuroscience so of course she was of great help. She provided me with lots of resources to do with not only the charity but also neuroscience and is always teaching me new ways to make my presentation more engaging.  At the start of the week I also contacted and visited my old secondary school to tell them about my project and now I am booked in for the next academic year to deliver my presentation to year 7 and 8.

So far the 1st week flew by and I can’t wait for what’s to come