Mutually Guided Few-shot Learning for Relational Triple Extraction

Knowledge graphs (KGs), containing many entity-relation-entity triples, provide rich information for downstream applications. Although extracting triples from unstructured texts has been widely explored, most of them require a large number of labeled instances. The performance will drop dramatically when only few labeled data are available. To tackle this problem, we propose the Mutually Guided Few-shot learning framework for Relational Triple Extraction (MG-FTE). Specifically, our method consists of an entity-guided relation proto-decoder to classify the relations firstly and a relation-guided entity proto-decoder to extract entities based on the classified relations. To draw the connection between entity and relation, we design a proto-level fusion module to boost the performance of both entity extraction and relation classification. Moreover, a new cross-domain few-shot triple extraction task is introduced. Extensive experiments show that our method outperforms many state-of-the-art methods by 12.6 F1 score on FewRel 1.0 (single-domain) and 20.5 F1 score on FewRel 2.0 (cross-domain).Comment: Accepted by ICASSP 202

A potential anti-tumor herbal medicine, Corilagin, inhibits ovarian cancer cell growth through blocking the TGF-β signaling pathways

BACKGROUND: Phyllanthus niruri L. is a well-known hepatoprotective and antiviral medicinal herb. Recently, we identified Corilagin as a major active component with anti-tumor activity in this herbal medicine. Corilagin is a member of the tannin family that has been discovered in many medicinal plants and has been used as an anti-inflammatory agent. However, there have been few reports of the anti-tumor effects of Corilagin, and its anti-tumor mechanism has not been investigated clearly. The aim of the present study is to investigate the anticancer properties of Corilagin in ovarian cancer cells. METHODS: The ovarian cancer cell lines SKOv3ip, Hey and HO-8910PM were treated with Corilagin and analyzed by Sulforhodamine B (SRB) cell proliferation assay, flow cytometry, and reverse phase protein array (RPPA). Corilagin was delivered intraperitoneally to mice bearing SKOv3ip xenografts. RESULTS: Corilagin inhibited the growth of the ovarian cancer cell lines SKOv3ip and Hey, with IC50 values of less than 30 μM, while displaying low toxicity against normal ovarian surface epithelium cells, with IC50 values of approximately 160 μM. Corilagin induced cell cycle arrest at the G2/M stage and enhanced apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells. Immunoblotting assays demonstrated that Cyclin B1, Myt1, Phospho-cdc2 and Phospho-Weel were down-regulated after Corilagin treatment. Xenograft tumor growth was significantly lower in the Corilagin-treated group compared with the untreated control group (P <0.05). More interestingly, Corilagin inhibited TGF-β secretion into the culture supernatant of all tested ovarian cancer cell lines and blocked the TGF-β-induced stabilization of Snail. In contrast, a reduction of TGF-β secretion was not observed in cancer cells treated with the cytotoxic drug Paclitaxel, suggesting that Corilagin specifically targets TGF-β secretion. Corilagin blocked the activation of both the canonical Smad and non-canonical ERK/AKT pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Corilagin extracted from Phyllanthus niruri L. acts as a natural, effective therapeutic agent against the growth of ovarian cancer cells via targeted action against the TGF-β/AKT/ERK/Smad signaling pathways

Revealing Particle-Scale Powder Spreading Dynamics in Powder-Bed-Based Additive Manufacturing Process by High-Speed X-Ray Imaging

Powder spreading is a key step in the powder-bed-based additive manufacturing process, which determines the quality of the powder bed and, consequently, affects the quality of the manufactured part. However, powder spreading behavior under additive manufacturing condition is still not clear, largely because of the lack of particle-scale experimental study. Here, we studied particle-scale powder dynamics during the powder spreading process by using in-situ high-speed high-energy x-ray imaging. Evolution of the repose angle, slope surface speed, slope surface roughness, and the dynamics of powder clusters at the powder front were revealed and quantified. Interactions of the individual metal powders, with boundaries (substrate and container wall), were characterized, and coefficients of friction between the powders and boundaries were calculated. The effects of particle size on powder flow dynamics were revealed. The particle-scale powder spreading dynamics, reported here, are important for a thorough understanding of powder spreading behavior in the powder-bed-based additive manufacturing process, and are critical to the development and validation of models that can more accurately predict powder spreading behavior

Nitrogen nutrient status induces sexual differences in responses to cadmium in Populus yunnanensis

Populus yunnanensis was employed as a model species to detect sexual differences in growth, physiological, biochemical, and ultrastructural responses to cadmium (Cd) stress, nitrogen (N) deposition, and their combination. Compared with the control conditions, Cd decreased plant biomass, damaged the photosynthetic apparatus, visible as a decreased maximum efficiency of photosystem II (PSII; Fv/Fm) and effective quantum yield of PSII (Yield), depressed gas exchange capacity, and induced oxidative stress, visible as the disruption of antioxidative enzymes and accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), in both sexes. On the other hand, Cd toxicity was mitigated by the recovery of gas exchange capacity, a decrease in ROS, and improvement of the redox imbalance in both sexes when N deposition was applied. However, males showed a higher gas exchange capacity, lower enzyme inhibition and ROS accumulation, stronger abilities to maintain cellular redox homeostasis, and a better maintenance of chloroplast ultrastructure than did females when exposed to Cd stress alone. Although males exhibited a higher Cd content in leaves than did females, males also accumulated higher levels of non-protein thiols (NP-SHs) and free amino acids (FAAs) for detoxification than did females. Sexual differences induced by Cd, visible, for example, in Fv/Fm, Yield, net photosynthesis rate (A), and stomatal conductance (gs), decreased under N deposition, as no significant differences between the sexes existed in these parameters under the combined treatment. The results indicated that females are more sensitive to Cd stress and suffer more injuries than do males. Moreover, N deposition can mitigate Cd toxicity and decrease sexual differences in Cd sensitivity

Down-Regulation of MiR-127 Facilitates Hepatocyte Proliferation during Rat Liver Regeneration

Liver regeneration (LR) after partial hepatectomy (PH) involves the proliferation and apoptosis of hepatocytes, and microRNAs have been shown to post-transcriptionally regulate genes involved in the regulation of these processes. To explore the role of miR-127 during LR, the expression patterns of miR-127 and its related proteins were investigated. MiR-127 was introduced into a rat liver cell line to examine its effects on the potential target genes Bcl6 and Setd8, and functional studies were undertaken. We discovered that miR-127 was down-regulated and inversely correlated with the expression of Bcl6 and Setd8 at 24 hours after PH, a time at which hypermethylation of the promoter region of the miR-127 gene was detected. Furthermore, in BRL-3A rat liver cells, we observed that overexpression of miR-127 significantly suppressed cell growth and directly inhibited the expression of Bcl6 and Setd8. The results suggest that down-regulation of miR-127 may be due to the rapid methylation of its promoter during the first 24 h after PH, and this event facilitates hepatocyte proliferation by releasing Bcl6 and Setd8. These findings support a miRNA-mediated negative regulation pattern in LR and implicate an anti-proliferative role for miR-127 in liver cells

Myopic versus Far-Sighted Behaviors in Dynamic Supply Chain Coordination through Advertising with Reference Price Effect

To better understand the different effects of the myopic and far-sighted behaviors on the advertising coordination in dynamic supply chain, this paper takes the reference price effect into consideration and formulates four differential game models for the two-level supply chain composed of a manufacturer and a retailer in the situation of Stackelberg game. In our models, the market demand is assumed to be affected by the goodwill, reference price, and the advertising investment, in which the advertising investment can promote the construction of goodwill and such goodwill can further enhance the reference price. The results show that the participating members in the supply chain should invest more in advertisement to improve the goodwill and the relative reference price reflected in the minds of consumers. A far-sighted manufacturer will invest more in the advertisement and charge a higher wholesale price regardless of the behavior choice of the retailer. However, such kind of ignorance leads to different results on the retail pricing strategies of the retailer. The numerical analyses are given in the end to verify the effectiveness of the conclusions which provide the theoretical support to the dynamic supply chain coordination in practice

The first complete mitochondrial genome of Siphonosoma from Siphonosoma cumanense (Sipuncula, Sipunculidae)

Siphonosoma cumanense is economic important species in the fishery of southeast China. However, the current classification and the phylogeny of genus Siphonosoma had not been verified yet. Here, we report the complete mitochondrial genome sequence of S. Siphonosoma. The mitogenome has 15,917 base pairs and made up of total of 38 genes (13 protein-coding, 23 transfer RNAs and 2 ribosomal RNAs), and a putative control region. This study was the first available complete mitogenomes of Siphonosoma and will provide useful genetic information for future phylogenetic and taxonomic classification of Sipuncula

The complete mitochondrial genome of Chicoreus asianus (Neogastropoda: Muricidae) from Beibu Bay

Chicoreus asianus is an ecologically and economically important species of Muricidae, which comprises a highly diverse group of carnivorous marine snails. However, the taxonomic classification and phylogenetic studies have so far been limited. In this study, we report the complete mitochondrial genome of C. asianus. The mitogenome has 15,361 base pairs (65.2% A + T content) and made up of total of 37 genes (13 protein-coding, 22 transfer RNAs and 2 ribosomal RNAs), and a control region. The complete mitogenomes of C. asianus. will provide useful genetic information for future taxonomic and phylogenetic classification of Neogastropoda