584 research outputs found
A Causal View of Entity Bias in (Large) Language Models
Entity bias widely affects pretrained (large) language models, causing them
to rely on (biased) parametric knowledge to make unfaithful predictions.
Although causality-inspired methods have shown great potential to mitigate
entity bias, it is hard to precisely estimate the parameters of underlying
causal models in practice. The rise of black-box LLMs also makes the situation
even worse, because of their inaccessible parameters and uncalibrated logits.
To address these problems, we propose a specific structured causal model (SCM)
whose parameters are comparatively easier to estimate. Building upon this SCM,
we propose causal intervention techniques to mitigate entity bias for both
white-box and black-box settings. The proposed causal intervention perturbs the
original entity with neighboring entities. This intervention reduces specific
biasing information pertaining to the original entity while still preserving
sufficient semantic information from similar entities. Under the white-box
setting, our training-time intervention improves OOD performance of PLMs on
relation extraction (RE) and machine reading comprehension (MRC) by 5.7 points
and by 9.1 points, respectively. Under the black-box setting, our in-context
intervention effectively reduces the entity-based knowledge conflicts of
GPT-3.5, achieving up to 20.5 points of improvement of exact match accuracy on
MRC and up to 17.6 points of reduction in memorization ratio on RE. Our code is
available at https://github.com/luka-group/Causal-View-of-Entity-Bias.Comment: Findings of EMNLP 202
CCL21/CCR7 enhances the proliferation, migration, and invasion of human bladder cancer T24 cells
Objective To investigate the effects of CCL21/CCR7 on the proliferation, migration, and invasion of T24 cells and the possible associated mechanisms: expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9, and regulation of BCL-2 and BAX proteins. Methods T24 cells received corresponding treatments including vehicle control, antibody (20ng/mL CCR7 antibody and 50 ng/ml CCL21), and 50, 100. and 200 ng/ml CCL21. Proliferation was evaluated by MTT assay; cell migration and invasion were assayed using a transwell chamber. Cell apoptosis was induced by Adriamycin (ADM). The rate of cell apoptosis was examined by flow cytometry using annexin V-FITC/PI staining. Western-blot was used to analyze MMP-2 and MMP-9 and BCL-2 and BAX proteins. Results CCL21 promoted T24 cell proliferation in concentration-dependent manner with that 200 ng/mL induced the largest amount of proliferation. Significant differences of cell migration were found between CCL21treatment groups and the control group in both the migration and invasion studies (P \u3c 0.001 for all). The expressions of MMP-2 and MMP-9 proteins were significantly increased after CCL21 treatment (p \u3c 0.05 for all). Protein expression of Bcl-21 follows an ascending trend while the expression of Bax follows a descending trend as the concentration of CCL21 increases. No difference was found between the control group and antibody group for all assessments. Conclusion CCL21/CCR7 promoted T24 cell proliferation and enhanced its migration and invasion via the increased expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9. CCL21/CCR7 had antiapoptotic activities on T24 cells via regulation of Bcl-2 and Bax proteins. CCL21/CCR7 may promote bladder cancer development and metastasis
Model of a multiverse providing the dark energy of our universe
It is shown that the dark energy presently observed in our universe can be
regarded as the energy of a scalar field driving an inflation-like expansion of
a multiverse with ours being a subuniverse among other parallel universes. A
simple model of this multiverse is elaborated: Assuming closed space geometry,
the origin of the multiverse can be explained by quantum tunneling from
nothing; subuniverses are supposed to emerge from local fluctuations of
separate inflation fields. The standard concept of tunneling from nothing is
extended to the effect that in addition to an inflationary scalar field, matter
is also generated, and that the tunneling leads to an (unstable) equilibrium
state. The cosmological principle is assumed to pertain from the origin of the
multiverse until the first subuniverses emerge. With increasing age of the
multiverse, its spatial curvature decays exponentially so fast that, due to
sharing the same space, the flatness problem of our universe resolves by
itself. The dark energy density imprinted by the multiverse on our universe is
time-dependent, but such that the ratio of its mass
density and pressure (times ) is time-independent and assumes a value
with arbitrary . can be chosen so
small, that the dark energy model of this paper can be fitted to the current
observational data as well as the cosmological constant model.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figure
Metagenomics reveals the abundance and accumulation trend of antibiotic resistance gene profile under long-term no tillage in a rainfed agroecosystem
Widespread soil resistance can seriously endanger sustainable food production and soil health. Conservation tillage is a promising practice for improving soil structure and health. However, the impact of long-term no-tillage on the presence of antibiotic resistance genes in agricultural soils remains unexplored. Based on the long-term (>11 yr) tillage experimental fields that include both conservation tillage practices [no tillage (ZT)] and conventional tillage practices [plough tillage (PT)], we investigated the accumulation trend of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in farmland soils under long-term no-tillage conditions. We aimed to provide a scientific basis for formulating agricultural production strategies to promote ecological environment safety and human health. In comparison to PT, ZT led to a considerable reduction in the relative abundance of both antibiotic resistance genes and antibiotic target gene families in the soil. Furthermore, the abundance of all ARGs were considerably lower in the ZT soil. The classification of drug resistance showed that ZT substantially decreased the relative abundance of Ethambutol (59.97%), β-lactams (44.87%), Fosfomycin (35.82%), Sulfonamides (34.64%), Polymyxins (33.67%), MLSB (32.78%), Chloramphenicol (28.57%), Multi-drug resistance (26.22%), Efflux pump (23.46%), Aminoglycosides (16.79%), Trimethoprim (13.21%), Isoniazid (11.34%), Fluoroquinolone (6.21%) resistance genes, compared to PT soil. In addition, the abundance of the bacterial phyla Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Gemmatimonadetes decreased considerably. The Mantel test indicated that long-term ZT practices substantially increased the abundance of beneficial microbial flora and inhibited the enrichment of ARGs in soil by improving soil microbial diversity, metabolic activity, increasing SOC, TN, and available Zn, and decreasing pH. Overall, long-term no-tillage practices inhibit the accumulation of antibiotic resistance genes in farmland soil, which is a promising agricultural management measure to reduce the accumulation risk of soil ARGs
Effects of biochar application and nutrient fluctuation on the growth, and cadmium and nutrient uptake of Trifolium repens with different planting densities in Cd-contaminated soils
Biochar has been used to remediate contaminated-soil with heavy metals, however, less is known on how biochar interacts with planting density and nutrient fluctuation to affect the remediation. A pot experiment was conducted in the greenhouse to investigate the effects of biochar application (without vs. with 1% biochar, g/g substrate), nutrient fluctuation (constant vs. pulsed) and planting density (1-, 3- and 6-individuals per pot) on the growth, and cadmium (Cd) and nutrient uptake of Trifolium repens population. Our results found that the growth of T. repens population increased significantly with increasing planting density, and the increment decreased with increasing planting density. Both the Cd and nutrient uptake were higher at higher planting density (e.g., 3- and 6-individuals) than at lower planting density (e.g., 1-individual). Biochar application increased the biomass and shoot Cd uptake, but decreased the ratio of root to shoot and root Cd uptake of T. repens population, the effects of which were significantly influenced by planting density. Although nutrient fluctuation had no effect on the growth of T. repens population, but its interaction with planting density had significant effects on Cd uptake in tissues. Overall, the effects of biochar application and nutrient fluctuation on the growth and Cd uptake were both influenced by planting density in the present study. Our findings highlight that biochar application and constant nutrient supply at an appropriate planting density, such as planting density of 3-individuals per pot in the present study, could promote the growth, and Cd and nutrient uptake of T. repens population
Electronic Structure, Surface Doping, and Optical Response in Epitaxial WSe2 Thin Films
High quality WSe2 films have been grown on bilayer graphene (BLG) with
layer-by-layer control of thickness using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The
combination of angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES), scanning tunneling
microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS), and optical absorption measurements reveal
the atomic and electronic structures evolution and optical response of
WSe2/BLG. We observe that a bilayer of WSe2 is a direct bandgap semiconductor,
when integrated in a BLG-based heterostructure, thus shifting the
direct-indirect band gap crossover to trilayer WSe2. In the monolayer limit,
WSe2 shows a spin-splitting of 475 meV in the valence band at the K point, the
largest value observed among all the MX2 (M = Mo, W; X = S, Se) materials. The
exciton binding energy of monolayer-WSe2/BLG is found to be 0.21 eV, a value
that is orders of magnitude larger than that of conventional 3D semiconductors,
yet small as compared to other 2D transition metal dichalcogennides (TMDCs)
semiconductors. Finally, our finding regarding the overall modification of the
electronic structure by an alkali metal surface electron doping opens a route
to further control the electronic properties of TMDCs
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