NotI Is Not Boring

Not boring at all

The element boron is not renowned among biologists, short of a few specialists who know that it is an essential nutrient for plants and an element in boromycin—an antibiotic compound produced by Streptomyces. Yet, on the whole, molecular biologists and, in particular, those in drug development seem to have little use for carbon’s left-hand neighbour in the periodic table. This is about to chang...

Why Mathematics is Boring

Storytellers have many strategies for luring in their audience and keeping them interested. These include standardized narrative structures, vivid characters, breaking down long stories into episodes, and subtle methods of reminding the readers of facts they may have forgotten. The typical style of writing mathematics systematically avoids these strategies, since the explicit goal is “proving a...

Repetitive perhaps, but certainly not boring

Not another boring lecture: engaging learners with active learning techniques.

BACKGROUND Core content in Emergency Medicine Residency Programs is traditionally covered in didactic sessions, despite evidence suggesting that learners do not retain a significant portion of what is taught during lectures. DISCUSSION We describe techniques that medical educators can use when leading teaching sessions to foster engagement and encourage self-directed learning, based on curren...

Entity Extraction is a Boring Solved Problem - Or is it?

This paper presents empirical results that contradict the prevailing opinion that entity extraction is a boring solved problem. In particular, we consider data sets that resemble familiar MUC/ACE data, and report surprisingly poor performance for both commercial and research systems. We then give an error analysis that suggests research challenges for entity extraction that are neither boring n...