How did the discussion go: Discourse act classification in social media conversations

We propose a novel attention based hierarchical LSTM model to classify discourse act sequences in social media conversations, aimed at mining data from online discussion using textual meanings beyond sentence level. The very uniqueness of the task is the complete categorization of possible pragmatic roles in informal textual discussions, contrary to extraction of question-answers, stance detection or sarcasm identification which are very much role specific tasks. Early attempt was made on a Reddit discussion dataset. We train our model on the same data, and present test results on two different datasets, one from Reddit and one from Facebook. Our proposed model outperformed the previous one in terms of domain independence; without using platform-dependent structural features, our hierarchical LSTM with word relevance attention mechanism achieved F1-scores of 71\% and 66\% respectively to predict discourse roles of comments in Reddit and Facebook discussions. Efficiency of recurrent and convolutional architectures in order to learn discursive representation on the same task has been presented and analyzed, with different word and comment embedding schemes. Our attention mechanism enables us to inquire into relevance ordering of text segments according to their roles in discourse. We present a human annotator experiment to unveil important observations about modeling and data annotation. Equipped with our text-based discourse identification model, we inquire into how heterogeneous non-textual features like location, time, leaning of information etc. play their roles in charaterizing online discussions on Facebook

Impaired glucose tolerance or newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus diagnosed during admission adversely affects prognosis after myocardial infarction: An observational study

Objective To investigate the prognostic effect of newly diagnosed diabetes mellitus (NDM) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) post myocardial infarction (MI). Research Design and Methods Retrospective cohort study of 768 patients without preexisting diabetes mellitus post-MI at one centre in Yorkshire between November 2005 and October 2008. Patients were categorised as normal glucose tolerance (NGT n = 337), IGT (n = 279) and NDM (n = 152) on predischarge oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). Primary end-point was the first occurrence of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) including cardiovascular death, non-fatal MI, severe heart failure (HF) or non-haemorrhagic stroke. Secondary end-points were all cause mortality and individual components of MACE. Results Prevalence of NGT, impaired fasting glucose (IFG), IGT and NDM changed from 90%, 6%, 0% and 4% on fasting plasma glucose (FPG) to 43%, 1%, 36% and 20% respectively after OGTT. 102 deaths from all causes (79 as first events of which 46 were cardiovascular), 95 non fatal MI, 18 HF and 9 non haemorrhagic strokes occurred during 47.2 ± 9.4 months follow up. Event free survival was lower in IGT and NDM groups. IGT (HR 1.54, 95% CI: 1.06–2.24, p = 0.024) and NDM (HR 2.15, 95% CI: 1.42–3.24, p = 0.003) independently predicted MACE free survival. IGT and NDM also independently predicted incidence of MACE. NDM but not IGT increased the risk of secondary end-points. Conclusion Presence of IGT and NDM in patients presenting post-MI, identified using OGTT, is associated with increased incidence of MACE and is associated with adverse outcomes despite adequate secondary prevention

A General Setting for Geometric Phase of Mixed States Under an Arbitrary Nonunitary Evolution

The problem of geometric phase for an open quantum system is reinvestigated in a unifying approach. Two of existing methods to define geometric phase, one by Uhlmann's approach and the other by kinematic approach, which have been considered to be distinct, are shown to be related in this framework. The method is based upon purification of a density matrix by its uniform decomposition and a generalization of the parallel transport condition obtained from this decomposition. It is shown that the generalized parallel transport condition can be satisfied when Uhlmann's condition holds. However, it does not mean that all solutions of the generalized parallel transport condition are compatible with those of Uhlmann's one. It is also shown how to recover the earlier known definitions of geometric phase as well as how to generalize them when degeneracy exists and varies in time.Comment: 4 pages, extended result

Bounds on Multipartite Entangled Orthogonal State Discrimination Using Local Operations and Classical Communication

We show that entanglement guarantees difficulty in the discrimination of orthogonal multipartite states locally. The number of pure states that can be discriminated by local operations and classical communication is bounded by the total dimension over the average entanglement. A similar, general condition is also shown for pure and mixed states. These results offer a rare operational interpretation for three abstractly defined distance like measures of multipartite entanglement.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Title changed in accordance with jounral request. Major changes to the paper. Intro rewritten to make motivation clear, and proofs rewritten to be clearer. Picture added for clarit

Validity of the second law in nonextensive quantum thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics in nonextensive statistical mechanics is discussed in the quantum regime. Making use of the convexity property of the generalized relative entropy associated with the Tsallis entropy indexed by q, Clausius' inequality is shown to hold in the range of q between zero and two. This restriction on the range of the entropic index, q, is purely quantum mechanical and there exists no upper bound of q for validity of the second law in classical theory.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

Linux kernel compaction through cold code swapping

There is a growing trend to use general-purpose operating systems like Linux in embedded systems. Previous research focused on using compaction and specialization techniques to adapt a general-purpose OS to the memory-constrained environment, presented by most, embedded systems. However, there is still room for improvement: it has been shown that even after application of the aforementioned techniques more than 50% of the kernel code remains unexecuted under normal system operation. We introduce a new technique that reduces the Linux kernel code memory footprint, through on-demand code loading of infrequently executed code, for systems that support virtual memory. In this paper, we describe our general approach, and we study code placement algorithms to minimize the performance impact of the code loading. A code, size reduction of 68% is achieved, with a 2.2% execution speedup of the system-mode execution time, for a case study based on the MediaBench II benchmark suite

The Minimum Shared Edges Problem on Grid-like Graphs

We study the NP-hard Minimum Shared Edges (MSE) problem on graphs: decide whether it is possible to route $p$ paths from a start vertex to a target vertex in a given graph while using at most $k$ edges more than once. We show that MSE can be decided on bounded (i.e. finite) grids in linear time when both dimensions are either small or large compared to the number $p$ of paths. On the contrary, we show that MSE remains NP-hard on subgraphs of bounded grids. Finally, we study MSE from a parametrised complexity point of view. It is known that MSE is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to the number $p$ of paths. We show that, under standard complexity-theoretical assumptions, the problem parametrised by the combined parameter $k$, $p$, maximum degree, diameter, and treewidth does not admit a polynomial-size problem kernel, even when restricted to planar graphs

Setting targets for HIV/AIDS-What lessons can be learned from other disease control programmes?

Our analysis of experience from programmes targeting malaria, leprosy and TB shows the importance of drawing broadly on research and implementation expertise, and civil society more broadly, when setting targets for HIV control. The engagement of stakeholders from the highest burden settings, including affected populations, is crucial, to ensure that disease control efforts uphold human rights and tackle HIV-related stigma and discrimination. An appropriate balance is needed between ambitious, galvanising global targets that drive funding and political/public engagement, and targets that reflect the complexities and local epidemiological variations in disease profile. Ethical issues and unintended consequences need to be considered when setting targets—particularly around local effects and opportunity costs of having foregone other areas of disease control and public health. Intermediate and adaptable targets are needed that allow for course corrections to programmes. Overly burdensome reporting requirements for individual local programmes and countries should be avoided, as well as potential for overlapping and sometimes conflicting targets both within and across vertical disease programmes. Process targets should be distinguished from outcome targets, which should be measurable and based on high-quality data. Retention of expert healthcare worker skills and specialist services is vital, while moving towards integrated health systems if effective disease control programmes are to be maintained. Target development should seek areas of programme delivery where an opportunity to codevelop targets and integrate services exists. Global efforts to move to universal health coverage (UHC), for example, could be factored in when developing targets. Sustaining investment and continuing political interest in the end phase of any elimination or eradication strategy, once incidence and prevalence are low, are critical to achieve success. Equity- and access-based service delivery targets become increasingly important as the elimination strategy nears its end and should be factored into planning. Achieving disease elimination and/or eradication is only possible with sufficient investment in research to develop new prevention tools such as vaccines, point-of-care diagnostics, and treatments to counteract the effects of increasing drug resistance and the challenging latency period of diseases; public health infrastructure upgrades that address wider determinants of health; and health and surveillance systems that allow for equitable delivery and access to services