Composite Correlation Quantization for Efficient Multimodal Retrieval

Efficient similarity retrieval from large-scale multimodal database is pervasive in modern search engines and social networks. To support queries across content modalities, the system should enable cross-modal correlation and computation-efficient indexing. While hashing methods have shown great potential in achieving this goal, current attempts generally fail to learn isomorphic hash codes in a seamless scheme, that is, they embed multiple modalities in a continuous isomorphic space and separately threshold embeddings into binary codes, which incurs substantial loss of retrieval accuracy. In this paper, we approach seamless multimodal hashing by proposing a novel Composite Correlation Quantization (CCQ) model. Specifically, CCQ jointly finds correlation-maximal mappings that transform different modalities into isomorphic latent space, and learns composite quantizers that convert the isomorphic latent features into compact binary codes. An optimization framework is devised to preserve both intra-modal similarity and inter-modal correlation through minimizing both reconstruction and quantization errors, which can be trained from both paired and partially paired data in linear time. A comprehensive set of experiments clearly show the superior effectiveness and efficiency of CCQ against the state of the art hashing methods for both unimodal and cross-modal retrieval

Anti-tumor activity of triterpenoid-rich extract from bamboo shavings (Caulis bamfusae in Taeniam)

Bamboo shavings are a kind of Chinese traditional medicine, which have been certificated as a material of functional food by the Ministry of Health in China. The anti-tumor activities of a triterpenoid-rich extract of bamboo shavings (EBS) and its main component, friedelin were evaluated in the present study. It was proved that EBS could inhibit the growth of P388 and A549 cancer cell lines effectively by SRB and MTT assay. Meanwhile, EBS had notable inhibitory effect on the sarcoma-loaded mice S180 model, which led to a depressed trend of tumor weight, compared to cyclophosphamide. Furthermore, the anti-tumor activity of friedelin monomer, a main triterpenoid separated from EBS, was tested by MTT assay and results showed that friedelin displayed rather strong anti-tumor activities on the proliferation of four cancer lines, A375, L929, Hela and THP-1, with a time-dose relationship compared to de-methylcantharidin, respectively. Therefore, it is suggested that EBS has a great potential to be applied in functional food for its anti-tumor activity, in which friedelin was one of the most important active factors.Key words: Extract of bamboo shavings, anti-tumor, friedelin, triterpenoid (Caulis bamfusae in Taeniam)

The Effects of the interfacial Pseudo-spin Coupling Fluctuation on the Dielectric Property of a Ferroelectric Superlattice

Using effective-field theory with correlations, we investigate the effects of interfacial pseudo-spin coupling fluctuations on the susceptibility and polarization of ferroelectric superlattices within the framework of transverse Ising model. It is found that the interfacial coupling fluctuations increase the susceptibility in the low temperature region. For a strong interfacial coupling, the phase transition temperature decreases with the strength of fluctuations of the interfacial coupling. The dependence of the susceptibility on the superlattice period of $BaTiO_{3}/SrTiO_{3}$ are plotted for different interfacial coupling fluctuations strength. At room temperature, when the interfacial coupling fluctuation increases, the peak position of the susceptibility will shift to a large superlattice period.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, RevTex

Preferential regulation of stably expressed genes in the human genome suggests a widespread expression buffering role of microRNAs

In this study, we comprehensively explored the stably expressed genes (SE genes) and fluctuant genes (FL genes) in the human genome by a meta-analysis of large scale microarray data. We found that these genes have distinct function distributions. miRNA targets are shown to be significantly enriched in SE genes by using propensity analysis of miRNA regulation, supporting the hypothesis that miRNAs can buffer whole genome expression fluctuation. The expression-buffering effect of miRNA is independent of the target site number within the 3'-untranslated region. In addition, we found that gene expression fluctuation is positively correlated with the number of transcription factor binding sites in the promoter region, which suggests that coordination between transcription factors and miRNAs leads to balanced responses to external perturbations

Neutron star composition in strong magnetic fields

We study the problem of neutron star composition in the presence of a strong magnetic field. The effects of the anomalous magnetic moments of both nucleons and electrons are investigated in relativistic mean field calculations for a $\beta$-equilibrium system. Since neutrons are fully spin polarized in a large field, generally speaking, the proton fraction can never exceed the field free case. An extremely strong magnetic field may lead to a pure neutron matter instead of a proton-rich matter.Comment: 12 pages, 3 postscript files include

A Catalog of Luminous Infrared Galaxies in the IRAS Survey and the Second Data Release of the SDSS

We select the Luminous Infrared Galaxies by cross-correlating the Faint Source Catalogue (FSC) and Point Source Catalogue (PSC) of the IRAS Survey with the Second Data Release of the SDSS for studying their infrared and optical properties. The total number of our sample is 1267 for FSC and 427 for PSC by using 2$\sigma$ significance level cross-section. The "likelihood ratio" method is used to estimate the sample's reliability and for a more reliable subsample (908 for FSC and 356 for PSC) selection. Then a Catalog with both the infrared, optical and radio informations is presented and will be used in further works. Some statistical results show that the Luminous Infrared Galaxies are quite different from the Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies. The AGN fractions of galaxies with different infrared luminosities and the radio to infrared correlations are consist with previous studies.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Accepted by ChJAA. Reference adde

Potential Tumor Suppressor NESG1 as an Unfavorable Prognosis Factor in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

BACKGROUND:Recently we identified nasopharyngeal epithelium specific protein 1 (NESG1) as a potential tumor suppressor in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The purpose of this study is to investigate the involvement of NESG1 in tumor progression and prognosis of human NPC. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:NESG1 protein expression in NPC was examined. Survival analysis was performed using Kaplan-Meier method. The effect of NESG1 on cell proliferation, migration, and invasion were also investigated. RESULTS:NESG1 expression was downregulated in atypical hyperplasia and NPC samples compared to normal and squamous nasopharynx tissues. Reduced protein expression was negatively associated with the status of NPC progression. Patients with lower NESG1 expression had a shorter overall survival and disease-free time than did patients with higher NESG1 expression. Multivariate analysis suggested NESG1 expression as an independent prognostic indicator for NPC patient survival. Proliferation, migration, and invasion ability were significantly increased in cell lines following lentiviral-mediated shRNA suppression of NESG1 expression. Microarray analysis indicated that NESG1 participated in multiple pathways, including MAPK signaling and cell cycle regulation. Finally, DNA methylation microarray examination revealed a lack of hypermethylation at the NESG1 promoter, suggesting other mechanisms are involved in suppressing NESG1 expression in NPC. CONCLUSION:Our studies are the first to demonstrate that decreased NESG1 expression is an unfavorable prognostic factor for NPC