22 research outputs found
Detecting Compromised Implicit Association Test Results Using Supervised Learning
An implicit association test is a human psychological test used to measure
subconscious associations. While widely recognized by psychologists as an
effective tool in measuring attitudes and biases, the validity of the results
can be compromised if a subject does not follow the instructions or attempts to
manipulate the outcome. Compared to previous work, we collect training data
using a more generalized methodology. We train a variety of different
classifiers to identify a participant's first attempt versus a second possibly
compromised attempt. To compromise the second attempt, participants are shown
their score and are instructed to change it using one of five randomly selected
deception methods. Compared to previous work, our methodology demonstrates a
more robust and practical framework for accurately identifying a wide variety
of deception techniques applicable to the IAT.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur
Erythrocyte and Porcine Intestinal Glycosphingolipids Recognized by F4 Fimbriae of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli
Enterotoxigenic F4-fimbriated Escherichia coli is associated with diarrheal disease in neonatal and postweaning pigs. The F4 fimbriae mediate attachment of the bacteria to the pig intestinal epithelium, enabling an efficient delivery of diarrhea-inducing enterotoxins to the target epithelial cells. There are three variants of F4 fimbriae designated F4ab, F4ac and F4ad, respectively, having different antigenic and adhesive properties. In the present study, the binding of isolated F4ab, F4ac and F4ad fimbriae, and F4ab/ac/ad-fimbriated E. coli, to glycosphingolipids from erythrocytes and from porcine small intestinal epithelium was examined, in order to get a comprehensive view of the F4-binding glycosphingolipids involved in F4-mediated hemagglutination and adhesion to the epithelial cells of porcine intestine. Specific interactions between the F4ab, F4ac and F4ad fimbriae and both acid and non-acid glycosphingolipids were obtained, and after isolation of binding-active glycosphingolipids and characterization by mass spectrometry and proton NMR, distinct carbohydrate binding patterns were defined for each fimbrial subtype. Two novel glycosphingolipids were isolated from chicken erythrocytes, and characterized as GalNAcα3GalNAcß3Galß4Glcß1Cer and GalNAcα3GalNAcß3Galß4GlcNAcß3Galß4Glcß1Cer. These two compounds, and lactosylceramide (Galß4Glcß1Cer) with phytosphingosine and hydroxy fatty acid, were recognized by all three variants of F4 fimbriae. No binding of the F4ad fimbriae or F4ad-fimbriated E. coli to the porcine intestinal glycosphingolipids occurred. However, for F4ab and F4ac two distinct binding patterns were observed. The F4ac fimbriae and the F4ac-expressing E. coli selectively bound to galactosylceramide (Galß1Cer) with sphingosine and hydroxy 24:0 fatty acid, while the porcine intestinal glycosphingolipids recognized by F4ab fimbriae and the F4ab-fimbriated bacteria were characterized as galactosylceramide, sulfatide (SO3-3Galß1Cer), sulf-lactosylceramide (SO3-3Galß4Glcß1Cer), and globotriaosylceramide (Galα4Galß4Glcß1Cer) with phytosphingosine and hydroxy 24:0 fatty acid. Finally, the F4ad fimbriae and the F4ad-fimbriated E. coli, but not the F4ab or F4ac subtypes, bound to reference gangliotriaosylceramide (GalNAcß4Galß4Glcß1Cer), gangliotetraosylceramide (Galß3GalNAcß4Galß4Glcß1Cer), isoglobotriaosylceramide (Galα3Galß4Glcß1Cer), and neolactotetraosylceramide (Galß4GlcNAcß3Galß4Glcß1Cer)
Learning Significant Alignments: An Alternative to Normalized Local Alignment
We describe a supervised learning approach to resolve difficulties in nding biologically significant local alignments. It was noticed that the O(n²) algorithm by Smith-Waterman, the prevalent tool for computing local sequence alignment, often outputs long, meaningless alignments while ignoring shorter, biologically significant ones. Arslan et. al. proposed an O(n²log n) algorithm which outputs a normalized local alignment that maximizes the degree of similarity rather than the total similarity score. Given a properly selected normalization parameter, the algorithm can discover significant alignments that would be missed by the Smith-Waterman algorithm. Unfortunately, determining a proper normalization parameter requires repeated executions with different parameter values and expert feedback to determine the usefulness of the alignments. We propose a learning approach that uses existing biologically significant alignments to learn parameters for intelligently processing sub-optimal Smith-Waterman alignments. Our algorithm runs in O(n²) time and can discover biologically significant alignments without requiring expert feedback to produce meaningful results
Discovering Optimization Algorithms through Automated Learning
In this paper, we describe the supervised learning approach to optimization problems in the spirit of the PAC learning model. By this approach, we discover domain-specific algorithms by learning from an oracle, which is also an optimization algorithm for the problem in question. We describe examples of learning backtracking-based algorithms and algorithms that implement the dynamic programming paradigm