Exploiting Contrastive Learning and Numerical Evidence for Confusing Legal Judgment Prediction

Given the fact description text of a legal case, legal judgment prediction (LJP) aims to predict the case's charge, law article and penalty term. A core problem of LJP is how to distinguish confusing legal cases, where only subtle text differences exist. Previous studies fail to distinguish different classification errors with a standard cross-entropy classification loss, and ignore the numbers in the fact description for predicting the term of penalty. To tackle these issues, in this work, first, we propose a moco-based supervised contrastive learning to learn distinguishable representations, and explore the best strategy to construct positive example pairs to benefit all three subtasks of LJP simultaneously. Second, in order to exploit the numbers in legal cases for predicting the penalty terms of certain cases, we further enhance the representation of the fact description with extracted crime amounts which are encoded by a pre-trained numeracy model. Extensive experiments on public benchmarks show that the proposed method achieves new state-of-the-art results, especially on confusing legal cases. Ablation studies also demonstrate the effectiveness of each component.Comment: Accepted to Findings of EMNLP 202

Reflection-Like Maps in High-Dimensional Euclidean Space

In this paper, we introduce reflection-like maps in n-dimensional Euclidean spaces, which are affinely conjugated to θ : ( x 1 , x 2 , … , x n ) → 1 x 1 , x 2 x 1 , … , x n x 1 . We shall prove that reflection-like maps are line-to-line, cross ratios preserving on lines and quadrics preserving. The goal of this article was to consider the rigidity of line-to-line maps on the local domain of R n by using reflection-like maps. We mainly prove that a line-to-line map η on any convex domain satisfying η ∘ 2 = i d and fixing any points in a super-plane is a reflection or a reflection-like map. By considering the hyperbolic isometry in the Klein Model, we also prove that any line-to-line bijection f : D n ↦ D n is either an orthogonal transformation, or a composition of an orthogonal transformation and a reflection-like map, from which we can find that reflection-like maps are important elements and instruments to consider the rigidity of line-to-line maps

Seismic Analysis of Isolated Continuous Bridge considering Influence of Seawater and Site Condition

The effects of seawater and site conditions on the seismic response of the isolated continuous girder bridge are evaluated in this study. The seawater-muddy soil-isolated bridge coupling model is built in the dynamic analysis software ADINA, and the external seismic wave input is realized by the seismic wave motion analysis program. The influences of seawater and muddy soil on the seismic response of isolated continuous girder bridges are determined by comparing different offshore site models. The results indicated that the seawater and the muddy soil magnify the displacement of the seabed. The existence of seawater increases the longitudinal relative displacement of piers by 20%–40% but has limited influence on the bending moment and shear force of piers. The muddy soil can increase the longitudinal relative displacement and internal force of the piers remarkably. Moreover, the displacement of bridge bearings increases significantly under the combined influence of muddy soil and seawater. In the seawater-muddy soil-isolated bridge coupling model, the seawater and site condition can influence the seismic performance of sea-crossing bridges obviously

Joint Optimization Strategy of Condition-Based Maintenance and Spare Parts Ordering for Nonlinear Degraded Equipment under Imperfect Maintenance

When existing methods consider the impact of the imperfect maintenance activities on random degraded equipment, they usually assume that the degraded equipment is linear, and set the number of imperfect maintenance activities in advance. However, in engineering practice, most of the degraded equipment is nonlinear, and the number of imperfect maintenance activities has an impact on the development of maintenance strategies. Therefore, this paper proposes a new joint maintenance strategy considering the uncertainty of the number of imperfect maintenance activities for nonlinear degraded equipment. First, nonlinear degradation data are linearized based on Box-Cox transformation (BCT), and the degradation model under the influence of imperfect activities is constructed by the random coefficient regression model. Accordingly, the remaining useful life (RUL) probability distribution can be derived. Secondly, the number of maintenances is calculated by imperfect maintenance level and success probability. Then, the detection cycle, preventive maintenance threshold and maintenance times are taken as decision variables. The optimization objective is to minimize the expected average cost. However, this is restricted by availability and probability of success for imperfect maintenance activities. A multi-objective joint optimization model of condition-based maintenance and spare parts ordering is constructed. Finally, the analysis results based on numerical examples verify the feasibility of the proposed joint optimization strategy

Joint Optimization Strategy of Condition-Based Maintenance and Spare Parts Ordering for Nonlinear Degraded Equipment under Imperfect Maintenance

When existing methods consider the impact of the imperfect maintenance activities on random degraded equipment, they usually assume that the degraded equipment is linear, and set the number of imperfect maintenance activities in advance. However, in engineering practice, most of the degraded equipment is nonlinear, and the number of imperfect maintenance activities has an impact on the development of maintenance strategies. Therefore, this paper proposes a new joint maintenance strategy considering the uncertainty of the number of imperfect maintenance activities for nonlinear degraded equipment. First, nonlinear degradation data are linearized based on Box-Cox transformation (BCT), and the degradation model under the influence of imperfect activities is constructed by the random coefficient regression model. Accordingly, the remaining useful life (RUL) probability distribution can be derived. Secondly, the number of maintenances is calculated by imperfect maintenance level and success probability. Then, the detection cycle, preventive maintenance threshold and maintenance times are taken as decision variables. The optimization objective is to minimize the expected average cost. However, this is restricted by availability and probability of success for imperfect maintenance activities. A multi-objective joint optimization model of condition-based maintenance and spare parts ordering is constructed. Finally, the analysis results based on numerical examples verify the feasibility of the proposed joint optimization strategy

Recombinant Rabies Virus Overexpressing OX40-Ligand Enhances Humoral Immune Responses by Increasing T Follicular Helper Cells and Germinal Center B Cells

Rabies, caused by the rabies virus (RABV), remains a serious threat to public health in most countries. Development of a single-dose and efficacious rabies vaccine is the most important method to restrict rabies virus transmission. Costimulatory factor OX40-ligand (OX40L) plays a crucial role in the T cell-dependent humoral immune responses through T-B cell interaction. In this work, a recombinant RABV overexpressing mouse OX40L (LBNSE-OX40L) was constructed, and its effects on immunogenicity were evaluated in a mouse model. LBNSE-OX40L-immunized mice generated a larger number of T follicular helper (Tfh) cells, germinal center (GC) B cells, and plasma cells (PCs) than the parent virus LBNSE-immunized mice. Furthermore, LBNSE-OX40L induced significantly higher levels of virus-neutralizing antibodies (VNA) as early as seven days post immunization (dpi), which lasted for eight weeks, resulting in better protection for mice than LBNSE (a live-attenuated rabies vaccine strain). Taken together, our data in this study suggest that OX40L can be a novel and potential adjuvant to improve the induction of protective antibody responses post RABV immunization by triggering T cell-dependent humoral immune responses, and that LBNSE-OX40L can be developed as an efficacious and nonpathogenic vaccine for animals