A Re-ranking Model for Dependency Parser with Recursive Convolutional Neural Network

In this work, we address the problem to model all the nodes (words or phrases) in a dependency tree with the dense representations. We propose a recursive convolutional neural network (RCNN) architecture to capture syntactic and compositional-semantic representations of phrases and words in a dependency tree. Different with the original recursive neural network, we introduce the convolution and pooling layers, which can model a variety of compositions by the feature maps and choose the most informative compositions by the pooling layers. Based on RCNN, we use a discriminative model to re-rank a $k$-best list of candidate dependency parsing trees. The experiments show that RCNN is very effective to improve the state-of-the-art dependency parsing on both English and Chinese datasets

Practical Resource Allocation Algorithms for QoS in OFDMA-based Wireless Systems

In this work we propose an efficient resource allocation algorithm for OFDMA based wireless systems supporting heterogeneous traffic. The proposed algorithm provides proportionally fairness to data users and short term rate guarantees to real-time users. Based on the QoS requirements, buffer occupancy and channel conditions, we propose a scheme for rate requirement determination for delay constrained sessions. Then we formulate and solve the proportional fair rate allocation problem subject to those rate requirements and power/bandwidth constraints. Simulations results show that the proposed algorithm provides significant improvement with respect to the benchmark algorithm.Comment: To be presented at 2nd IEEE International Broadband Wireless Access Workshop. Las Vegas, Nevada USA Jan 12 200

Fast Adaptive S-ALOHA Scheme for Event-driven Machine-to-Machine Communications

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication is now playing a market-changing role in a wide range of business world. However, in event-driven M2M communications, a large number of devices activate within a short period of time, which in turn causes high radio congestions and severe access delay. To address this issue, we propose a Fast Adaptive S-ALOHA (FASA) scheme for M2M communication systems with bursty traffic. The statistics of consecutive idle and collision slots, rather than the observation in a single slot, are used in FASA to accelerate the tracking process of network status. Furthermore, the fast convergence property of FASA is guaranteed by using drift analysis. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed FASA scheme achieves near-optimal performance in reducing access delay, which outperforms that of traditional additive schemes such as PB-ALOHA. Moreover, compared to multiplicative schemes, FASA shows its robustness even under heavy traffic load in addition to better delay performance.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted to IEEE VTC2012-Fal

Drug Discovery from Diverse Bacteria – Bioactivity-guided Isolation of Known and New Metabolites

Exploring bioactive natural products has contributed largely to clinically approved drugs we have been using over the last 100 years. Especially among the anti-infective drugs, around 70% of currently used antibiotics were discovered or derived from microbial secondary metabolites, among them compounds like vancomycin, chloramphenicol, and erythromycin. Facing the unavoidable fact of microbial drug resistance and low cure rate of cancers, exploring new drug leads is essential and urgent. Drug discovery from microbial sources has just scratched the surface: recent surveys have shown that bacterial genomes are filled with genes encoding for secondary metabolites, that have not been seen in the laboratory, and that unique environments and underexplored biodiverse niches can yield new bacterial species with unique chemotypes. Bioactivity-guided isolation with dereplication is still an efficient method used in the laboratory to discover new bioactive compounds. This thesis includes the details on isolation of bacterial strains from diverse environments, bioactivity-guided fractionation, and dereplication/characterization of isolated metabolites. Bacterial strain library, consisting ~400 bacteria, was established in Loesgen Lab. The protocols of bacterial isolation from terrestrial and marine sources, the workflow of methods for chemical and bioactivity screening, and dereplication methods are presented. Approximately 50% of the bacterial strains have been extracted, fractionated and tested for cytotoxicity against a colon cancer cell line. Projects were prioritized based on the chemical and bioactivity screening results. An investigation of 19 bacterial strains from Oregonian soils yielded twelve known metabolites and two new natural products, a new tetrapeptide from Streptomyces sp. and a new chromone from Paraburkholderia sp. Their absolute configuration was established via advanced Marfey’s analysis and X-ray crystallography. Besides, an unusual cytotoxic diterpenoid was discovered from Streptomyces flaveolus, featuring five chiral centers and two double bond geometries within a fused bicyclo[8.4.0]tetradecane macrocycle. The metabolite existed in two distinct ring-flipped conformers in solution and its absolute configuration was determined by Mosher ester analysis, J-based coupling analysis, and DFT modeling

On NIS-Apriori Based Data Mining in SQL

We have proposed a framework of Rough Non-deterministic Information Analysis (RNIA) for tables with non-deterministic information, and applied RNIA to analyzing tables with uncertainty. We have also developed the RNIA software tool in Prolog and getRNIA in Python, in addition to these two tools we newly consider the RNIA software tool in SQL for handling large size data sets. This paper reports the current state of the prototype named NIS-Apriori in SQL, which will afford us more convenient environment for data analysis.International Joint Conference on Rough Sets　(IJCRS 2016), October 7-11, 2016, Santiago, Chil

RETRACTED: Metallic Ions Encapsulated in Electrospun Nanofiber for Antibacterial and Angiogenesis Function to Promote Wound Repair

Electrospun nanofiber is an attractive biomaterial for skin tissue engineering because it mimics the natural fibrous extracellular matrix structure and creates a physical structure suitable for skin tissue regeneration. However, endowing the nanofibrous membranes with antibacterial and angiogenesis functions needs to be explored. In the current study, we aimed to fabricate gelatin/polycaprolactone (GT/PCL) (GT/PCL-Ag-Mg) nanofibers loaded with silver (Ag) and magnesium (Mg) ions for antibacterial activity and pro-angiogenesis function for wound repair. The fabricated GT/PCL membranes had a nanofibrous structure with random arrangement and achieved sustained release of Ag and Mg ions. In vitro results indicated that the GT/PCL-Ag-Mg membranes presented satisfactory cytocompatibility with cell survival and proliferation. In addition, the membranes with Ag demonstrated good antibacterial capacity to both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, and the Mg released from the membranes promoted the tube formation of vascular endothelial cells. Furthermore, in vivo results demonstrated that the GT/PCL-Ag-Mg membrane presented an accelerated wound healing process compared with GT/PCL membranes incorporated with either Ag or Mg ions and pure GT/PCL alone. Superior epidermis formation, vascularization, and collagen deposition were also observed in GT/PCL-Ag-Mg membrane compared with the other membranes. In conclusion, a multifunctional GT/PCL-Ag-Mg membrane was fabricated with anti-infection and pro-angiogenesis functions, serving as a potential metallic ion-based therapeutic platform for applications in wound repair

Current application and future perspectives of antimicrobial degradable bone substitutes for chronic osteomyelitis

Chronic osteomyelitis remains a persistent challenge for the surgeons due to its refractory nature. Generally, treatment involves extensive debridement of necrotic bone, filling of dead space, adequate antimicrobial therapy, bone reconstruction, and rehabilitation. However, the optimal choice of bone substitute to manage the bone defect remains debatable. This paper reviewed the clinical evidence for antimicrobial biodegradable bone substitutes in the treatment of osteomyelitis in recent years. Indeed, this combination was proved to eradicate infection and facilitate bone reconstruction, which might reduce the cost and hospital stay. Handling was associated with increased risk of unwanted side effect to affect bone healing. The study provides some valuable insights into the clinical evaluation of treatment outcomes in the aspects of infection eradication, bone reconstruction, and complications caused by materials. However, achieving complete infection eradication and subsequently perfect bone reconstruction remains challenging in compromised conditions, hence advanced innovative bone substitutes are imperative. In this review, we mainly focus on the desired functional effects of advanced bone substitutes on infection eradication and bone reconstruction from the future perspective. Handling property was optimized to simplify surgery process. It is expected that this review will provide an important opportunity to enhance the understanding of the design and application of innovative biomaterials to synergistically eradicate infection and restore integrity and function of bone