Semantic knowledge in Question-Answering systems

International audienceQA systems need semantic knowledge to find in documents variations of the question terms. They benefit from the use of knowledge resources such as synonym dictionaries or ontologies like WordNet. Our goal here is to study to which extent variations are needed and to determine what kinds of variations are useful or necessary for these systems. This study is based on different corpora in which we analyze semantic term variations, based on reference sets of possible variations

Simulation stochastique couplée fades et diagenèse. L'exemple de la diagenèse précoce dans la formation Madison (Wyoming, USA)

Cette etude propose une approche integree visant areproduire ala fois la repartition des facies sedimentaires et des phases diagenetiques associees, au sein d'un modele statique de reservoir. Dans le Wyoming (USA), la Formation Madison (d'age Mississippien) est une formation carbonatee, epaisse de 200 a340 m, affleurant dans plusieurs zones du bassin d'avant-pays des Bighorn. Au sein de cette serie, nous avons identifie neuf facies sedimentaires, groupes en trois sequences de facies (basees sur l'empilement vertical des facies): I) une sequence inter- a supratidale; 2) une sequence subtidale peu profonde a intertidale; 3) une sequence subtidale profonde et ouverte. Ces facies ont ensuite ete integres au sein d'un modele de depots synthetique, correspondant a une rampe carbonatee evoluant graduellement vers une geometrie de plate-forme dont seule la partie la plus interne est reconnue. Ce travail a permis de proposer un cadre chronostratigraphique pour la serie, qui couvre au moins six sequences de depots de troisieme ordre (certaines d'entre elles etant localement absentes car erodees). L'etude de la diagenese s'est concentree sur I'identification et la succession des phases diagenetiques precoces (micritisation, cimentation calcitique, dolomitisation ...). Pour les besoins de la modelisation, sept "empreintes diagenetiques" ont ete definies, chacune d'entre elles correspondant a une succession de phases diagenetiques coexistant au sein d'un meme facies sedimentaire. De plus, nous avons quantifie la proportion relative de chaque empreinte diagenetique affectant un facies sedimentaire. Un modele maille 3D a alors ete bati afin de reproduire I'organisation des facies des trois premieres sequences de depots (qui sont les mieux documentees). Le maillage est donc base sur les quatre limites de sequences reconnues sur toutes les coupes. Les relations entre facies sedimentaires et diagenese ont ete utilisees pour definir les parametres de simulation. Ces dernieres sont basees sur des algorithmes plurigaussien et emboites. Finalement, nous proposons une discussion sur la distribution des heterogeneites reservoirs potentielles, prenant en compte a la fois les caracteristiques sedimentaires (facies, architecture, continuite laterale... ) mais egalement I'impact de la diagenese

Establishment of the Variation of Vitamin K Status According to Vkorc1 Point Mutations Using Rat Models

International audienceVitamin K is crucial for many physiological processes such as coagulation, energy metabolism, and arterial calcification prevention due to its involvement in the activation of several vitamin K-dependent proteins. During this activation, vitamin K is converted into vitamin K epoxide, which must be re-reduced by the VKORC1 enzyme. Various VKORC1 mutations have been described in humans. While these mutations have been widely associated with anticoagulant resistance, their association with a modification of vitamin K status due to a modification of the enzyme efficiency has never been considered. Using animal models with different Vkorc1 mutations receiving a standard diet or a menadione-deficient diet, we investigated this association by measuring different markers of the vitamin K status. Each mutation dramatically affected vitamin K recycling efficiency. This decrease in recycling was associated with a significant alteration of the vitamin K status, even when animals were fed a menadione-enriched diet suggesting a loss of vitamin K from the cycle due to the presence of the Vkorc1 mutation. This change in vitamin K status resulted in clinical modifications in mutated rats only when animals receive a limited vitamin K intake totally consistent with the capacity of each strain to recycle vitamin K

A corpus for studying full answer justification

International audienceQuestion answering (QA) systems aim at retrieving precise information from a large collection of documents. To be considered as reliable by users, a QA system must provide elements to evaluate the answer. This notion of answer justification can also be useful when developing a QA system in order to give criteria for selecting correct answers. An answer justification can be found in a sentence, a passage made of several consecutive sentences or several passages of a document or several documents. Thus, we are interested in pinpointing the set of information that allows verifying the correctness of the answer in a candidate passage and the question elements that are missing in this passage. Moreover, the relevant information is often given in texts in a different form from the question form : anaphora, paraphrases, synonyms. In order to have a better idea of the importance of all the phenomena we underlined, and to provide enough examples at the QA developer’s disposal to study them, we decided to build an annotated corpus

Prosopographie des hommes du livre (La)

Actes du colloque organisé à l\u27enssib, Villeurbanne, par le Centre de Recherche en Histoire du Livre les 22 et 23 avril 2005, sous la coordination scientifique de Frédéric Barbier, École pratique des hautes études et de Dominique Varry, école nationale supérieure des sciences de l\u27information et des bibliothèques, avec la collaboration de Juliette Guilbaud

Combined approaches provide an anatomical and transcriptomic fingerprint of maize cell wall digestibility

Understanding cell wall biosynthesis and degradation in grasses has become a major aim in plant biology. Although independent previous reports have focused on specific features that dictate cell wall digestibility, cytological, biochemical, and gene regulation parameters have never been integrated within the same study. Herein, we applied a combination of state-of-the-art technologies and different scales of observation on two maize lines that are characterized by highly contrasted forage digestibility. Comparative image analysis of internode sections allow to get an anatomical fingerprint associated with high digestibility: a thin peripheral rind of lignified parenchyma, small numerous vascular bundles, and low proportion of PeriVascular Sclerenchyma (PVS). This cell type patterning led to enhanced digestibility when internode sections were treated with Celluclast, a commercially cell wall degrading enzyme. At a lower scale of observation, Laser Capture Microdissection (LCM) followed by thioacidolysis of PVS revealed a higher proportion of Syringyl (S) unit lignins in the low digestible line while the high digestible line was p-Hydroxyphenyl (H)-rich. Moreover, cytological observation of internodes of the two lines point out that this difference in composition is associated with a delayed lignification of PVS. At the same time, comparative transcriptomics on internodes indicated differential expression of several genes encoding enzymes along the phenylpropanoid pathway and known cell wall-associated Transcription Factors (TFs). Together, these results give an integrative view of different factors which could aim in designing a maize silage ideotype and provide a novel set of potential regulatory genes controlling lignification in maize

Bone Marrow Transplant

Mucopolysaccharidosis type I-H (MPS I-H) is a rare lysosomal storage disorder caused by α-L-Iduronidase deficiency. Early haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is the sole available therapeutic option to preserve neurocognitive functions. We report long-term follow-up (median 9 years, interquartile range 8-16.5) for 51 MPS I-H patients who underwent HSCT between 1986 and 2018 in France. 4 patients died from complications of HSCT and one from disease progression. Complete chimerism and normal α-L-Iduronidase activity were obtained in 84% and 71% of patients respectively. No difference of outcomes was observed between bone marrow and cord blood stem cell sources. All patients acquired independent walking and 91% and 78% acquired intelligible language or reading and writing. Intelligence Quotient evaluation (n = 23) showed that 69% had IQ ≥ 70 at last follow-up. 58% of patients had normal or remedial schooling and 62% of the 13 adults had good socio-professional insertion. Skeletal dysplasia as well as vision and hearing impairments progressed despite HSCT, with significant disability. These results provide a long-term assessment of HSCT efficacy in MPS I-H and could be useful in the evaluation of novel promising treatments such as gene therapy