Improved movie recommendations based on a hybrid feature combination method

Recommender systems help users find relevant items efficiently based on their interests and historical interactions with other users. They are beneficial to businesses by promoting the sale of products and to user by reducing the search burden. Recommender systems can be developed by employing different approaches, including collaborative filtering (CF), demographic filtering (DF), content-based filtering (CBF) and knowledge-based filtering (KBF). However, large amounts of data can produce recommendations that are limited in accuracy because of diversity and sparsity issues. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid method that combines user–user CF with the attributes of DF to indicate the nearest users, and compare four classifiers against each other. This method has been developed through an investigation of ways to reduce the errors in rating predictions based on users’ past interactions, which leads to improved prediction accuracy in all four classification algorithms. We applied a feature combination method that improves the prediction accuracy and to test our approach, we ran an offline evaluation using the 1M MovieLens dataset, well-known evaluation metrics and comparisons between methods with the results validating our proposed method

Can alternative medical methods evoke neuro-functional somatosensory responses? A case study suggesting functional improvement

Somatosensory pathways act as the avenue in transferring information concerning the body and its interaction with the external environment to the brain. We aim to demonstrate that through studying somatosensory, motor cortical and subcortical networks, we can explain functional recovery after stimulations applied as an alternative medical treatment. Those stimulations might have evidenced neural pathways and networks important in recovery of function. Materials and methods: The de-identified medical reports of nine patients with initial presentations of cerebral trauma or stroke inducing paralysis were studied.These included the alternative treatments they received and other available materials such as videos and photographs. Patients were either males or females and their ages ranged from 20 to 95-year old. All patients, were first treated through conventional medical interventions, including physical therapy. Patients consulted for alternative medical treatment, one year or more, after the initial diagnosis. The alternative medical treatment consisted in multiple points stimulations. Twelve points of stimulation on the skull were used. Additional 4 points of stimulation were located at the right and left calves and at the right and left forearms. All stimulations had nociceptive and proprioceptive components. The stimulations were applied successively one by one (legs, arms, skull). The treatment consisted in a one-time (exceptionally two) session. The duration of each stimulation was about 0.5 s. Results show that in all 9 cases, patients had improvement in their motor skills, including gain of weight support and unassisted small walks, independent and voluntary movements of limbs. Improvement was steady over a period of one to several years. We believe that whether lesions included prefrontal cortical areas, or motor and sensory areas, the alternative treatment triggered existing or new neuronal networks as well as synaptic efficiency or reactivation, through highly increased, sensory nociceptive coupled to proprioceptive, afferences. Those results highlight the need to further investigate neural function of cortical and subcortical areas through non-invasive and indirect pathways stimulations, during a stable chronic phase after a CNS insult

Magnetic and Optical properties of strained films of multiferroic GdMnO3

The effects of strain on a film of mulitferroic GdMnO3 are investigated using both magnetometry and magneto-optic spectroscopy. Optical spectra, in the energy range 1.5eV - 3.5eV, were taken in Faraday geometry in an applied magnetic field and also at remanence. This yielded rich information on the effects of strain on the spin ordering in these films. Epitaxial films of GdMnO3 were grown on SrTiO3 and LaAlO3 substrates. The LaAlO3 was twinned and so produced a highly strained film whereas the strain was less for the film grown on SrTiO3. The Ne\'el temperatures and coercive fields were measured using zero field data and hysteresis loops obtained using a SQUID magnetometer. Optical absorption data agreed with earlier work on bulk materials. The two well known features in the optical spectrum, the charge transfer transition between Mn d states at ~2eV and the band edge transition from the oxygen p band to the d states at ~3eV are observed in the magnetic circular dichroism; however they behaved very differently both as a function of magnetic field and temperature. This is interpreted in terms of the magnetic ordering of the Mn spins.Comment: 9 pages of text including figure

A switching multi-level method for the long tail recommendation problem

Recommender systems are decision support systems that play an important part in generating a list of product or service recommendations for users based on the past experiences and interactions. The most popular recommendation method is Collaborative Filtering (CF) that is based on the users’ rating history to generate the recommendation. Although, recommender systems have been applied successfully in different areas such as e-Commerce and Social Networks, the popularity bias is still one of the challenges that needs to be further researched. Therefore, we propose a multi-level method that is based on a switching approach which solves the long tail recommendation problem (LTRP) when CF fails to find the target case. We have evaluated our method using two public datasets and the results show that it outperforms a number of bases lines and state-of-the-art alternatives with a further reduce of the recommendation error rates for items found in the long tail

Dissymmetric dinuclear transition metal complexes as dual site catalysts for the polymerization of ethylene

A series of dissymmetric dinuclear complexes were synthesized, as dual site catalysts in ethylene polymerization, by coupling the allylated a-diimine complexes of the metals Ti, Zr, V, Ni and Pd with the ansa-zirconocene complex [C5H4-SiH(Me)-C5H4]ZrCl2 possessing a hydride silane moiety. The different stages of syntheses included the formation of bis(cyclopentadienide)methyl silane which was utilized to prepare the silyl-bridged zirconocene complexes. The dinuclear complexes were prepared by mixing the latter complexes with allylated alpha-diimine via a hydrosilylation reaction using the Karstedt catalyst, platinum (0)1,3 divinyl-1,1,3,3,-tetramethyldisiloxane to react at room temperature for 40 h. These dinuclear complexes were activated with methylaluminoxane (MAO) and tested for the polymerization of ethylene. The dinuclear catalysts showed various activities depending on the nature of the metals and produced polyethylenes with broad or bimodal molecular weight distributions. The trend in polymerization activities was: Ni>Pd>V>Zr>Ti. The ethylene polymerization activities of the dinuclear catalysts were almost double the activities of their analogous alpha-diimine precursors

Gene expression of inflammatory markers in adipose tissue between obese women with polycystic ovary and normal obese women

OBJECTIVE: The pathogenesis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a common endocrine disease and metabolic disturbance, is still unknown. The aim of the study was to investigate whether patients with PCOS display increased expression of inflammatory markers in adipose tissue. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Two groups of women were investigated, those diagnosed with PCOS (n = 8) and age and BMI-matched normal women (n = 12). Their age was between 20-45 years and all subjects were apparently healthy and did not take any medications. Adipose tissue levels of mRNA of inflammatory markers were determined by use of real-time PCR. RESULTS: There were no differences between obese patients and obese PCOS in levels of adipocytokines. CONCLUSIONS: There were no effects of PCOS on the expression of any of the adipocytokines genes measured in subcutaneous adipose tissue

Reproducibility of experiments in recommender systems evaluation

© IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2018 Published by Springer International Publishing AG 2018. All Rights Reserved. Recommender systems evaluation is usually based on predictive accuracy metrics with better scores meaning recommendations of higher quality. However, the comparison of results is becoming increasingly difficult, since there are different recommendation frameworks and different settings in the design and implementation of the experiments. Furthermore, there might be minor differences on algorithm implementation among the different frameworks. In this paper, we compare well known recommendation algorithms, using the same dataset, metrics and overall settings, the results of which point to result differences across frameworks with the exact same settings. Hence, we propose the use of standards that should be followed as guidelines to ensure the replication of experiments and the reproducibility of the results

Design and synthesis of new thiazolidinone/uracil derivatives as antiproliferative agents targeting EGFR and/or BRAFV600E^{V600E}

Thiourea derivatives of uracil were efficiently synthesized via the reaction of 5-aminouracil with isothiocyanates. Then, we prepared uracil-containing thiazoles via condensation of thioureas with diethyl/dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylates. The structures of the products were confirmed by a combination of spectral techniques including infra-red (IR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), mass spectrometry (MS) and elemental analyses. A rationale for the formation of the products is presented. The newly synthesized compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antiproliferative activity against four cancer cell lines. The compounds tested showed promising antiproliferative activity, with GI$_{50}$ values ranging from 1.10 µM to 10.00 µM. Compounds 3c, 5b, 5c, 5h, 5i, and 5j were the most potent derivatives, with GI$_{50}$ values ranging from 1.10 µM to 1.80 µM. Compound 5b showed potent inhibitory activity against EGFR and BRAF$^{V600E}$ with IC$_{50}$ of 91 ± 07 and 93 ± 08 nM, respectively, indicating that this compound could serve as a dual inhibitor of EGFR and BRAF$^{V600E}$ with promising antiproliferative properties. Docking computations revealed the great potency of compounds 5b and 5j towards EGFR and BRAF$^{V600E}$ with docking scores of −8.3 and −9.7 kcal/mol and −8.2 and −9.3 kcal/mol, respectively

A Modular Bioplatform Based on a Versatile Supramolecular Multienzyme Complex Directly Attached to Graphene

© 2016 American Chemical Society. Developing generic strategies for building adaptable or multifunctional bioplatforms is challenging, in particular because protein immobilization onto surfaces often causes loss of protein function and because multifunctionality usually necessitates specific combinations of heterogeneous elements. Here, we introduce a generic, modular bioplatform construction strategy that uses cage-like supramolecular multienzyme complexes as highly adaptable building blocks immobilized directly and noncovalently on graphene. Thermoplasma acidophilum dihydrolipoyl acyltransferase (E2) supramolecular complexes organize as a monolayer or can be controllably transferred onto graphene, preserving their supramolecular form with specific molecular recognition capability and capacity for engineering multifunctionality. This E2-graphene platform can bind enzymes (here, E1, E2's physiological partner) without loss of enzyme function; in this test case, E1 catalytic activity was detected on E2-graphene over 6 orders of magnitude in substrate concentration. The E2-graphene platform can be multiplexed via patterned cotransfer of differently modified E2 complexes. As the E2 complexes are robust and highly customizable, E2-graphene is a platform onto which multiple functionalities can be built

Design, synthesis, docking and mechanistic studies of new thiazolyl/thiazolidinylpyrimidine-2,4-dione antiproliferative agents

In this article, we display on the synthesis and biological evaluation of a new series of thiazolylpyrimidine 3a-l and thiazolidinylpyrimidine derivatives 5a-e. The structures of the new compounds were confirmed by using different spectral techniques including NMR, IR, mass spectroscopy in addition to elemental analyses. The cell viability of the new compounds was assessed against normal human mammary gland epithelial (MCF-10A) cell line. Data revealed that none of the compounds examined exhibited cytotoxic effects, and the cell viability for the compounds examined at 50 µM was greater than 87%. The antiproliferative activity of 3a-l and 5a-e was evaluated against four human cancer cell lines where the compounds showed promising activity. The most potent derivatives were compounds 3a, 3c, 3f, 3i, and 5b with GI$_{50}$ values ranging from 0.90 µM to 1.70 µM against the four cancer cell lines in comparison to doxorubicin (GI$_{50}$ = 1.10 µM). Compounds 3a, 3c and 3i showed potent antiproliferative activity with dual inhibitory action against EGFR and BRAF$^{V600E}$. Compounds 3a, 3c, and 3i demonstrated promising AutoDock scores towards EGFR and BRAF$^{V600E}$ with values of − 9.1 and − 8.6, −9.0 and − 8.5, and − 8.4 and − 8.0 kcal/mol, respectively. The physicochemical and pharmacokinetic characteristics of 3a, 3c, and 3i were anticipated, demonstrating their oral bioavailability