Reinforced Mnemonic Reader for Machine Reading Comprehension

In this paper, we introduce the Reinforced Mnemonic Reader for machine reading comprehension tasks, which enhances previous attentive readers in two aspects. First, a reattention mechanism is proposed to refine current attentions by directly accessing to past attentions that are temporally memorized in a multi-round alignment architecture, so as to avoid the problems of attention redundancy and attention deficiency. Second, a new optimization approach, called dynamic-critical reinforcement learning, is introduced to extend the standard supervised method. It always encourages to predict a more acceptable answer so as to address the convergence suppression problem occurred in traditional reinforcement learning algorithms. Extensive experiments on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD) show that our model achieves state-of-the-art results. Meanwhile, our model outperforms previous systems by over 6% in terms of both Exact Match and F1 metrics on two adversarial SQuAD datasets.Comment: Published in 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), 201

IT Capabilities and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Institutional Pressures and the Mediating Role of IT Innovation Success

A review of the literature shows that the underlying mechanisms through which IT capabilities lead to improved firm performance are by no means clear, and IS researchers call for future research which develops better metrics for evaluating IT resources and examines the intermediate variables and context-related variables between IT capabilities and firm performance. This study integrates the moderating role of institutional context and the mediating role of IT innovation success into one structural model. The survey method has been conducted to test the proposed model and the results have been discussed in detail. This research helps identify the full chain of variables connecting IT capabilities to firm performance by adding an intermediate variable and a moderating variable. As a result, we suggest that firms should adapt to the different contexts with the distinct levels of institutional pressures in order to facilitate its IT capabilities to outperform than its competitors

The dependence of the structure of planet-opened gaps in protoplanetary disks on radiative cooling

Planets can excite density waves and open annular gas gaps in protoplanetary disks. The depth of gaps is influenced by the evolving angular momentum carried by density waves. While the impact of radiative cooling on the evolution of density waves has been studied, a quantitative correlation to connect gap depth with the cooling timescale is lacking. To address this gap in knowledge, we employ the grid-based code Athena++ to simulate disk-planet interactions, treating cooling as a thermal relaxation process. We establish quantitative dependences of steady-state gap depth (Eq. 36) and width (Eq. 41) on planetary mass, Shakura-Sunyaev viscosity, disk scale height, and thermal relaxation timescale $(\beta)$. We confirm previous results that gap opening is the weakest when thermal relaxation timescale is comparable to local dynamical timescale. Significant variations in gap depth, up to an order of magnitude, are found with different $\beta$. In terms of width, a gap is at its narrowest around $\beta=1$, approximately $10\%$ to $20\%$ narrower compared to the isothermal case. When $\beta\sim100$, it can be $\sim20\%$ wider, and higher viscosity enhances this effect. We derive possible masses of the gas gap-opening planets in AS 209, HD 163296, MWC 480, and HL Tau, accounting for the uncertainties in local thermal relaxation timescale.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Social Exclusion Online: A Literature Review and suggestions for Future Research

Because the belonging need is fundamental, an exclusion experience thwarts this need and causes cognitive, behavioral, and affective consequences for human functioning. This paper aims to integrate the enumerated effects of social exclusion in a real-world setting. Also, as the boundary between the real world and cyberspace is blurred, it became crucial to understand the dynamics of social relationships in an online environment. Thus, this paper also intends to review the influences of social exclusion in the online environment. Based on a review of previous findings, this study provides several suggestions for future research. There are interesting research opportunities to investigate how ostracized people react to being excluded, especially in cyberspace

Optimization of Solanum lyratum Crude Polysaccharide Extraction Process Using Response Surface Methodology and Analysis ofIts In Vitro Antioxidant Activity

To optimize the extraction process of polysaccharide form Solanum lyratum and investigate its in vitro antioxidative activity. In this study, response surface methodology was employed to optimize the ultrasonic-assisted extraction process of polysaccharides from Solanum lyratum. Single-factor experiments were conducted to explore the effects of three factors: Extraction temperature, extraction time, and solid-liquid ratio on the yield. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to analyze the structure of Solanum lyratum polysaccharide, and in vitro antioxidant activity was investigated. The results showed that the optimal extraction conditions were the material-liquid ratio of 1:57 g/mL, the extraction time of 58 min, and the extraction temperature of 65 ℃. Under these conditions, the yield of polysaccharides was 7.54%±0.12%. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy of the extracted polysaccharides exhibited a typical polysaccharide absorbance. Moreover, the half-maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) of polysaccharides against DPPH and ABTS+ free radicals were 1.104 and 1.408 mg/mL, respectively, indicating significant in vitro antioxidant activity. The results of this study provided a theoretical foundation for the further development and utilization of Solanum lyratum polysaccharides