Relating Apartness and Bisimulation

A bisimulation for a coalgebra of a functor on the category of sets can be described via a coalgebra in the category of relations, of a lifted functor. A final coalgebra then gives rise to the coinduction principle, which states that two bisimilar elements are equal. For polynomial functors, this leads to well-known descriptions. In the present paper we look at the dual notion of "apartness". Intuitively, two elements are apart if there is a positive way to distinguish them. Phrased differently: two elements are apart if and only if they are not bisimilar. Since apartness is an inductive notion, described by a least fixed point, we can give a proof system, to derive that two elements are apart. This proof system has derivation rules and two elements are apart if and only if there is a finite derivation (using the rules) of this fact. We study apartness versus bisimulation in two separate ways. First, for weak forms of bisimulation on labelled transition systems, where silent (tau) steps are included, we define an apartness notion that corresponds to weak bisimulation and another apartness that corresponds to branching bisimulation. The rules for apartness can be used to show that two states of a labelled transition system are not branching bismilar. To support the apartness view on labelled transition systems, we cast a number of well-known properties of branching bisimulation in terms of branching apartness and prove them. Next, we also study the more general categorical situation and show that indeed, apartness is the dual of bisimilarity in a precise categorical sense: apartness is an initial algebra and gives rise to an induction principle. In this analogy, we include the powerset functor, which gives a semantics to non-deterministic choice in process-theory

Acoustic Word Embeddings for Zero-Resource Languages Using Self-Supervised Contrastive Learning and Multilingual Adaptation

Acoustic word embeddings (AWEs) are fixed-dimensional representations of variable-length speech segments. For zero-resource languages where labelled data is not available, one AWE approach is to use unsupervised autoencoder-based recurrent models. Another recent approach is to use multilingual transfer: a supervised AWE model is trained on several well-resourced languages and then applied to an unseen zero-resource language. We consider how a recent contrastive learning loss can be used in both the purely unsupervised and multilingual transfer settings. Firstly, we show that terms from an unsupervised term discovery system can be used for contrastive self-supervision, resulting in improvements over previous unsupervised monolingual AWE models. Secondly, we consider how multilingual AWE models can be adapted to a specific zero-resource language using discovered terms. We find that self-supervised contrastive adaptation outperforms adapted multilingual correspondence autoencoder and Siamese AWE models, giving the best overall results in a word discrimination task on six zero-resource languages.Comment: Accepted to SLT 202

EFFECT OF LANDING SURFACE AND UPPER EXTREMITY CONSTRAINT ON BIOMECHANICS GRADED BY THE LANDING ERROR SCORING SYSTEM

The purpose of this study was to compare jump-landing biomechanics across 1) landing surface condition; and 2) upper extremity constraint condition as graded by the Landing Error Scoring System (LESS). Recreational athletes (N=40; 21M, 19F) performed three jump-landings with three surface (Grass (GS), Court (CS), and Tile (TS)) and upper extremity constraint conditions (unconstrained (UN), football (AF), and lacrosse stick (LS)). The jump-landings were recorded via 2D videography and graded using the LESS. No differences were observed by surface (GS=5.01±1.40; CS=4.83±1.31; TS=5.09±1.86, p=0.52) or constraint condition (UN=5.09±1.86; FB=4.76±1.65; LS=4.86±1.76; p=0.21). The results indicate that the LESS is a robust instrument biomechanical screening in different landing environments and with sports with different upper extremity equipment

TB16: The Effect of Stress on the Formation of Tissue Lipid from Dietary Protein

Rats were stressed in a black, enclosed, motor-driven drum by being rotated at random intervals during half of a forty-eight hour period. They were stressed for two out of every six days for six weeks, while receiving a casein diet.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_techbulletin/1176/thumbnail.jp

Relating Apartness and Bisimulation

A bisimulation for a coalgebra of a functor on the category of sets can be described via a coalgebra in the category of relations, of a lifted functor. A final coalgebra then gives rise to the coinduction principle, which states that two bisimilar elements are equal. For polynomial functors, this leads to well-known descriptions. In the present paper we look at the dual notion of "apartness". Intuitively, two elements are apart if there is a positive way to distinguish them. Phrased differently: two elements are apart if and only if they are not bisimilar. Since apartness is an inductive notion, described by a least fixed point, we can give a proof system, to derive that two elements are apart. This proof system has derivation rules and two elements are apart if and only if there is a finite derivation (using the rules) of this fact. We study apartness versus bisimulation in two separate ways. First, for weak forms of bisimulation on labelled transition systems, where silent (tau) steps are included, we define an apartness notion that corresponds to weak bisimulation and another apartness that corresponds to branching bisimulation. The rules for apartness can be used to show that two states of a labelled transition system are not branching bismilar. To support the apartness view on labelled transition systems, we cast a number of well-known properties of branching bisimulation in terms of branching apartness and prove them. Next, we also study the more general categorical situation and show that indeed, apartness is the dual of bisimilarity in a precise categorical sense: apartness is an initial algebra and gives rise to an induction principle. In this analogy, we include the powerset functor, which gives a semantics to non-deterministic choice in process-theory

Towards hate speech detection in low-resource languages: Comparing ASR to acoustic word embeddings on Wolof and Swahili

We consider hate speech detection through keyword spotting on radio broadcasts. One approach is to build an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system for the target low-resource language. We compare this to using acoustic word embedding (AWE) models that map speech segments to a space where matching words have similar vectors. We specifically use a multilingual AWE model trained on labelled data from well-resourced languages to spot keywords in data in the unseen target language. In contrast to ASR, the AWE approach only requires a few keyword exemplars. In controlled experiments on Wolof and Swahili where training and test data are from the same domain, an ASR model trained on just five minutes of data outperforms the AWE approach. But in an in-the-wild test on Swahili radio broadcasts with actual hate speech keywords, the AWE model (using one minute of template data) is more robust, giving similar performance to an ASR system trained on 30 hours of labelled data.Comment: Accepted to Interspeech 202

Disused Paleogene regional stages from Belgium: Montian, Heersian, Landenian, Paniselian, Bruxellian, Laekenian, Ledian, Wemmelian and Tongrian

An overview of nine disused Paleogene regional stages from Belgium is presented. Some of these regional chronostratigraphic units were already brought into use in the nineteenth century, but are nowadays considered ill defined and of no use in the light of the modern stratigraphic concepts. An overview of their definition and history is given, together with the argumentation for the abandonment of each unit and its present status. The disused chronostratigraphic units belong to the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene series

Role of hormone cofactors in the human papillomavirus-induced carcinogenesis of the uterine cervix

peer reviewedIf human papillomavirus (HPV) is necessary for the development of (pre)neoplastic lesions of the uterine cervix, it is not sufficient. Among the cofactors involved in the malignant transformation of cells infected by HPV, sex hormones may facilitate the cervical carcinogenesis by different mechanisms, including the induction of squamous metaplasia in the transformation zone of the cervix, interactions between steroid hormones and HPV gene expression and alterations of the local immune microenvironment

Large-scale identification of polymorphic microsatellites using an in silico approach

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) or microsatellite markers are valuable for genetic research. Experimental methods to develop SSR markers are laborious, time consuming and expensive. <it>In silico </it>approaches have become a practicable and relatively inexpensive alternative during the last decade, although testing putative SSR markers still is time consuming and expensive. In many species only a relatively small percentage of SSR markers turn out to be polymorphic. This is particularly true for markers derived from expressed sequence tags (ESTs). In EST databases a large redundancy of sequences is present, which may contain information on length-polymorphisms in the SSR they contain, and whether they have been derived from heterozygotes or from different genotypes. Up to now, although a number of programs have been developed to identify SSRs in EST sequences, no software can detect putatively polymorphic SSRs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed PolySSR, a new pipeline to identify polymorphic SSRs rather than just SSRs. Sequence information is obtained from public EST databases derived from heterozygous individuals and/or at least two different genotypes. The pipeline includes PCR-primer design for the putatively polymorphic SSR markers, taking into account Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) in the flanking regions, thereby improving the success rate of the potential markers. A large number of polymorphic SSRs were identified using publicly available EST sequences of potato, tomato, rice, <it>Arabidopsis</it>, <it>Brassica </it>and chicken.</p> <p>The SSRs obtained were divided into long and short based on the number of times the motif was repeated. Surprisingly, the frequency of polymorphic SSRs was much higher in the short SSRs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>PolySSR is a very effective tool to identify polymorphic SSRs. Using PolySSR, several hundred putative markers were developed and stored in a searchable database. Validation experiments showed that almost all markers that were indicated as putatively polymorphic by polySSR were indeed polymorphic. This greatly improves the efficiency of marker development, especially in species where there are low levels of polymorphism, like tomato. When combined with the new sequencing technologies PolySSR will have a big impact on the development of polymorphic SSRs in any species.</p> <p>PolySSR and the polymorphic SSR marker database are available from <url>http://www.bioinformatics.nl/tools/polyssr/</url>.</p