Robust domain adaptation for relation extraction via clustering consistency

We propose a two-phase framework to adapt existing relation extraction classifiers to extract relations for new target domains. We address two challenges: negative transfer when knowledge in source domains is used without considering the differences in relation distributions; and lack of adequate labeled samples for rarer relations in the new domain, due to a small labeled data set and imbalance relation distributions. Our framework leverages on both labeled and unlabeled data in the target domain. First, we determine the relevance of each source domain to the target domain for each relation type, using the consistency between the clustering given by the target domain labels and the clustering given by the predictors trained for the source domain. To overcome the lack of labeled samples for rarer relations, these clusterings operate on both the labeled and unlabeled data in the target domain. Second, we trade-off between using relevance-weighted sourcedomain predictors and the labeled target data. Again, to overcome the imbalance distribution, the source-domain predictors operate on the unlabeled target data. Our method outperforms numerous baselines and a weakly-supervised relation extraction method on ACE 2004 and YAGO. © 2014 Association for Computational Linguistics

Gitana: a SQL-based Git Repository Inspector

International audienceSoftware development projects are notoriously complex and difficult to deal with. Several support tools such as issue tracking, code review and Source Control Management (SCM) systems have been introduced in the past decades to ease development activities. While such tools efficiently track the evolution of a given aspect of the project (e.g., bug reports), they provide just a partial view of the project and often lack of advanced querying mechanisms limiting themselves to command line or simple GUI support. This is particularly true for projects that rely on Git, the most popular SCM system today. In this paper, we propose a conceptual schema for Git and an approach that, given a Git repository, exports its data to a relational database in order to (1) promote data integration with other existing SCM tools and (2) enable writing queries on Git data using standard SQL syntax. To ensure efficiency, our approach comes with an incremental propagation mechanism that refreshes the database content with the latest modifications. We have implemented our approach in Gitana, an open-source tool available on GitHub

Novel (Hetero)arylalkenyl propargylamine compounds are protective in toxin-induced models of Parkinson's disease

Background: Mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and their interplay are core pathological features of Parkinson's disease. In dopaminergic neurons, monoamines and their metabolites provide an additional source of reactive free radicals during their breakdown by monoamine oxidase or auto-oxidation. Moreover, mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress have a supraadditive impact on the pathological, cytoplasmic accumulation of dopamine and its subsequent release. Here we report the effects of a novel series of potent and selective MAO-B inhibitory (hetero)arylalkenylpropargylamine compounds having protective properties against the supraadditive effect of mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress. Results: The (hetero)arylalkenylpropargylamines were tested in vitro, on acute rat striatal slices, pretreated with the complex I inhibitor rotenone and in vivo, using the 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) induced acute, subchronic, and chronic experimental models of Parkinson's disease in mice. The compounds exhibited consistent protective effects against i) in vitro oxidative stress induced pathological dopamine release and the formation of toxic dopamine quinone in the rat striatum and rescued tyrosine hydroxylase positive neurons in the substantia nigra after rotenone treatment; ii) in vivo MPTP-induced striatal dopamine depletion and motor dysfunction in mice using acute and subchronic, delayed application protocols. One compound (SZV558) was also examined and proved to be protective in a chronic mouse model of MPTP plus probenecid (MPTPp) administration, which induces a progressive loss of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons. Conclusions: Simultaneous inhibition of MAO-B and oxidative stress induced pathological dopamine release by the novel propargylamines is protective in animal models and seems a plausible strategy to combat Parkinson's disease

Metastasis-suppressing <i>NID2</i>, an epigenetically-silenced gene, in the pathogenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

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Characterization of whole blood gene expression profiles as a sequel to globin mRNA reduction in patients with sickle cell disease

Global transcriptome analysis of whole blood RNA using microarrays has been proven to be challenging due to the high abundance of globin transcripts that constitute 70% of whole blood mRNA. This is a particular problem in patients with sickle cell disease, secondary to the high abundance of globin-expressing nucleated red blood cells and reticulocytes in the circulation. In order to accurately measure the steady state blood transcriptome in sickle cell patients we evaluated the efficacy of reducing globin transcripts in PAXgene stabilized RNA for genome-wide transcriptome analyses using microarrays. We demonstrate here by both microarrays and Q-PCR that the globin mRNA depletion method resulted in 55-65 fold reduction in globin transcripts in whole blood collected from healthy volunteers and sickle cell disease patients. This led to an improvement in microarray data quality by reducing data variability, with increased detection rate of expressed genes and improved overlap with the expression signatures of isolated peripheral blood mononuclear (PBMC) preparations. Analysis of differences between the whole blood transcriptome and PBMC transcriptome revealed important erythrocyte genes that participate in sickle cell pathogenesis and compensation. The combination of globin mRNA reduction after whole-blood RNA stabilization represents a robust clinical research methodology for the discovery of biomarkers for hematologic diseases

Characterisation of feline renal cortical fibroblast cultures and their transcriptional response to transforming growth factor beta 1

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common in geriatric cats, and the most prevalent pathology is chronic tubulointerstitial inflammation and fibrosis. The cell type predominantly responsible for the production of extra-cellular matrix in renal fibrosis is the myofibroblast, and fibroblast to myofibroblast differentiation is probably a crucial event. The cytokine TGF-β1 is reportedly the most important regulator of myofibroblastic differentiation in other species. The aim of this study was to isolate and characterise renal fibroblasts from cadaverous kidney tissue of cats with and without CKD, and to investigate the transcriptional response to TGF-β1

Beam Energy and Centrality Dependence of Direct-Photon Emission from Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions.

The PHENIX collaboration presents first measurements of low-momentum (0.41  GeV/c) direct-photon yield dN_{γ}^{dir}/dη is a smooth function of dN_{ch}/dη and can be well described as proportional to (dN_{ch}/dη)^{α} with α≈1.25. This scaling behavior holds for a wide range of beam energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider, for centrality selected samples, as well as for different A+A collision systems. At a given beam energy, the scaling also holds for high p_{T} (&gt;5  GeV/c), but when results from different collision energies are compared, an additional sqrt[s_{NN}]-dependent multiplicative factor is needed to describe the integrated-direct-photon yield

Eigenface algorithm-based facial expression recognition in conversations - an experimental study

Recognising facial expressions is important in many fields such as computer-human interface. Though different approaches have been widely used in facial expression recognition systems, there are still many problems in practice to achieve the best implementation outcomes. Most systems are tested via the lab-based facial expressions, which may be unnatural. Particularly many systems have problems when they are used for recognising the facial expressions being used during conversation. This paper mainly conducts an experi-mental study on Eigenface algorithm-based facial expression recognition. It primarily aims to investigate the performance of both lab-based facial expressions and facial expressions used during conversation. The experiment also aims to probe the problems arising from the recognition of facial expression in conversations. The study is carried out using both the author’s facial expression as the basis for the lab-based expressions and the facial expression from one elderly person during conversation. The experiment showed a good result in lab-based facial expressions, but there are some issues observed when using the case of facial expressions obtained in conversation. By analysing the experimental results, future research focus has been highlighted as the investigation of how to recognise special emotions such as a wry smile and how to deal with the interferences in the lower part of face when speaking

Carotid Body AT4 Receptor Expression and its Upregulation in Chronic Hypoxia

Hypoxia regulates the local expression of angiotensin-generating system in the rat carotid body and the me-tabolite angiotensin IV (Ang IV) may be involved in the modulation of carotid body function. We tested the hypothesis that Ang IV-binding angiotensin AT4 receptors play a role in the adaptive change of the carotid body in hypoxia. The expression and localization of Ang IV-binding sites and AT4 receptors in the rat carotid bodies were studied with histochemistry. Specific fluorescein-labeled Ang IV binding sites and positive staining of AT4 immunoreactivity were mainly found in lobules in the carotid body. Double-labeling study showed the AT4 receptor was localized in glomus cells containing tyrosine hydroxylase, suggesting the expression in the chemosensitive cells. Intriguingly, the Ang IV-binding and AT4 immunoreactivity were more intense in the carotid body of chronically hypoxic (CH) rats (breathing 10% oxygen for 4 weeks) than the normoxic (Nx) control. Also, the protein level of AT4 receptor was doubled in the CH comparing with the Nx group, supporting an upregulation of the expression in hypoxia. To examine if Ang IV induces intracellular Ca2+ response in the carotid body, cytosolic calcium ([Ca2+]i) was measured by spectrofluorimetry in fura-2-loaded glomus cells dissociated from CH and Nx carotid bodies. Exogenous Ang IV elevated [Ca2+]i in the glomus cells and the Ang IV response was significantly greater in the CH than the Nx group. Hence, hypoxia induces an upregulation of the expression of AT4 receptors in the glomus cells of the carotid body with an increase in the Ang IV-induced [Ca2+]i elevation. This may be an additional pathway enhancing the Ang II action for the activation of chemoreflex in the hypoxic response during chronic hypoxia