Image Captioning with Very Scarce Supervised Data: Adversarial Semi-Supervised Learning Approach

Constructing an organized dataset comprised of a large number of images and several captions for each image is a laborious task, which requires vast human effort. On the other hand, collecting a large number of images and sentences separately may be immensely easier. In this paper, we develop a novel data-efficient semi-supervised framework for training an image captioning model. We leverage massive unpaired image and caption data by learning to associate them. To this end, our proposed semi-supervised learning method assigns pseudo-labels to unpaired samples via Generative Adversarial Networks to learn the joint distribution of image and caption. To evaluate, we construct scarcely-paired COCO dataset, a modified version of MS COCO caption dataset. The empirical results show the effectiveness of our method compared to several strong baselines, especially when the amount of the paired samples are scarce.Comment: EMNLP 2019. Project page : https://sites.google.com/view/emnlp19scarcecaptio

Size distributions of atmospheric particulate matter and associated trace metals in the multi-industrial city of Ulsan, Korea

Particulate matter (PM) was collected using micro-orifice uniform deposit impactors from a residential (RES) site and an industrial (IND) site in Ulsan, South Korea, in September-October 2014. The PM samples were measured based on their size distributions (11 stages), ranging from 0.06 ??m to over 18.0 ??m. Nine trace metals (As, Se, Cr, V, Cd, Pb, Ba, Sb, and Zn) associated with PM were analyzed. The PM samples exhibited weak bimodal distributions irrespective of sampling sites and events, and the mean concentrations of total PM (TPM) measured at the IND site (56.7 ??g/m3) was higher than that measured at the RES site (38.2 ??g/m3). The IND site also showed higher levels of nine trace metals, reflecting the influence of industrial activities and traffic emissions. At both sites, four trace metals (Ba, Zn, V, and Cr) contributed to over 80% of the total concentrations in TPM. The modality of individual trace metals was not strong except for Zn; however, the nine trace metals in PM2.5 and PM10 accounted for approximately 50% and 90% of the total concentrations in TPM, respectively. This result indicates that the size distributions of PM and trace metals are important to understand how respirable PM affects public health

Photoemission and x-ray absorption study of MgC_(1-x)Ni_3

We investigated electronic structure of MgC_(1-x)Ni_3 with photoemission and x-ray absorption spectroscopy. Both results show that overall band structure is in reasonable agreement with band structure calculations including the existence of von Hove singularity (vHs)near E_F. However, we find that the sharp vHs peak theoretically predicted near the E_F is substantially suppressed. As for the Ni core level and absorption spectrum, there exist the satellites of Ni 2p which have a little larger energy separation and reduced intensity compared to the case of Ni-metal. These facts indicate that correlation effects among Ni 3d electrons may be important to understand various physical properties.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Current Situation and Issue of Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance

Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance (IACI) has a history of about 50 yr, and is the oldest social insurance system in Korea. After more than 20 times of revision improvements in benefits, its contents and claim systems have been upgraded. It became the protector of injured workers and their families, and at the same time became the system which could cope with both financial burden of employers and their responsibilities. However, there are some issues to be reformed to upgrade the IACI: 1) the problems in the approval system of occupational diseases, 2) quality improvement of workers' compensation medical care, 3) vocational rehabilitation and return to work, 4) workers' compensation premiums and out-of-pocket money of injured workers, 5) issues in application of IACI. Growth of IACI cannot be achieved by an effort of an individual. Efforts by workers, owners, and government, in addition to physicians and welfare professionals toward the same goal are required for the next level improvement of IACI

Regulation of cAMP and GSK3 signaling pathways contributes to the neuronal conversion of glioma

Glioma is the most malignant type of primary central nervous system tumors, and has an extremely poor prognosis. One potential therapeutic approach is to induce the terminal differentiation of glioma through the forced expression of pro-neural factors. Our goal is to show the proof of concept of the neuronal conversion of C6 glioma through the combined action of small molecules. We investigated the various changes in gene expression, cell-specific marker expression, signaling pathways, physiological characteristics, and morphology in glioma after combination treatment with two small molecules (CHIR99021, a glycogen synthase kinase 3 [GSK3] inhibitor and forskolin, a cyclic adenosine monophosphate [cAMP] activator). Here, we show that the combined action of CHIR99021 and forskolin converted malignant glioma into fully differentiated neurons with no malignant characteristics; inhibited the proliferation of malignant glioma; and significantly down-regulated gene ontology and gene expression profiles related to cell division, gliogenesis, and angiogenesis in small molecule-induced neurons. In vivo, the combined action of CHIR99021 and forskolin markedly delayed neurological deficits and significantly reduced the tumor volume. We suggest that reprogramming technology may be a potential treatment strategy replacing the therapeutic paradigm of traditional treatment of malignant glioma, and a combination molecule comprising a GSK3 inhibitor and a cAMP inducer could be the next generation of anticancer drugs

Characteristics of subclinical tuberculosis compared to active symptomatic tuberculosis using nationwide registry cohort in Korea: prospective cohort study

ObjectiveThe clinical manifestations of tuberculosis (TB) range from asymptomatic to disseminated depending on the microbiological and immunological status, making the diagnosis challenging. To improve our understanding of the disease progression mechanism, we aimed to identify the characteristics of subclinical TB and important predictors of symptom development.MethodsFrom July 2018 to June 2019, we systemically collected data from the National Surveillance System of South Korea on patients with pulmonary TB, and compared the characteristics of subclinical and active symptomatic TB patients.ResultsA total of 4,636 patients with pulmonary TB were included, and the prevalence of subclinical TB was 37.1% (1,720/4,636). In subclinical TB patients, the positivity rates of acid-fast bacilli (AFB) smear and culture were 16.2 and 50.2%, respectively. Subclinical TB patients were younger (55.6 ± 19.2 vs. 60.7 ± 19.5, P < 0.001), had a higher body mass index (21.7 ± 3.1 vs. 21.0 ± 3.5, P < 0.001), less under Medicaid support, and had lower rates of chronic lung disease, AFB smear and culture positivity, and bilateral disease. Regarding the characteristic differences of individual TB-related symptoms, age was positively associated with dyspnoea and general weakness but negatively associated with chest pain, haemoptysis, and weight loss. Male patients were more prone to weight loss. Chronic lung disease was related to symptoms including cough/phlegm, dyspnoea, and haemoptysis, while autoimmune diseases were associated with fever and weight loss.ConclusionsThe development of TB-related symptoms was associated with microbiological burden and clinical characteristics including underlying comorbidities, which should be evaluated carefully

Regulation of synaptic Rac1 activity, long-term potentiation maintenance, and learning and memory by BCR and ABR Rac GTPase-activating proteins

Rho family small GTPases are important regulators of neuronal development. Defective Rho regulation causes nervous system dysfunctions including mental retardation and Alzheimer's disease. Rac1, a member of the Rho family, regulates dendritic spines and excitatory synapses, but relatively little is known about how synaptic Rac1 is negatively regulated. Breakpoint cluster region (BCR) is a Rac GTPase-activating protein known to form a fusion protein with the c-Abl tyrosine kinase in Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia. Despite the fact that BCR mRNAs are abundantly expressed in the brain, the neural functions of BCR protein have remained obscure. We report here that BCR and its close relative active BCR-related (ABR) localize at excitatory synapses and directly interact with PSD-95, an abundant postsynaptic scaffolding protein. Mice deficient for BCR or ABR show enhanced basal Rac1 activity but only a small increase in spine density. Importantly, mice lacking BCR or ABR exhibit a marked decrease in the maintenance, but not induction, of long-term potentiation, and show impaired spatial and object recognition memory. These results suggest that BCR and ABR have novel roles in the regulation of synaptic Rac1 signaling, synaptic plasticity, and learning and memory, and that excessive Rac1 activity negatively affects synaptic and cognitive functions.This work was supported by the National Creative Research Initiative Program of the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (E.K.), Neuroscience Program Grant 2009-0081468 (S.-Y.C.), 21st Century Frontier R&D Program in Neuroscience Grant 2009K001284 (H.K.), Basic Science Research Program Grant R13-2008-009-01001-0 (Y.C.B.), and United States Public Health Service Grants HL071945 (J.G.) and HL060231 (J.G., N.H.)