Co-occurrence Vectors from Corpora vs. Distance Vectors from Dictionaries

A comparison was made of vectors derived by using ordinary co-occurrence statistics from large text corpora and of vectors derived by measuring the inter-word distances in dictionary definitions. The precision of word sense disambiguation by using co-occurrence vectors from the 1987 Wall Street Journal (20M total words) was higher than that by using distance vectors from the Collins English Dictionary (60K head words + 1.6M definition words). However, other experimental results suggest that distance vectors contain some different semantic information from co-occurrence vectors.Comment: 6 pages, appeared in the Proc. of COLING94 (pp. 304-309)

Optoelectronic parallel-matching architecture : architecture description, performance estimation, and prototype demonstration

This paper was published in Optics Express and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/AO.40.000283 Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law

A Young Man with Anti-NMDAR Encephalitis following Guillain-Barré Syndrome

A 19-year-old man developed rapidly progressive muscle weakness and dysesthesia in the extremities, and dyspnea after a flu-like episode. Nerve conduction studies showed reduced motor nerve conduction velocities with conduction block, and sensory nerve action potentials could not be evoked. The patient was diagnosed as having Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), and was treated with 2 cycles of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) therapy and was assisted by mechanical ventilation. During the recovery course of the illness, he experienced several attacks of psychomotor agitation from the 37th hospital day, and generalized tonic convulsive seizures suddenly developed on the 42nd hospital day. Brain MRI showed high-intensity lesions in the bilateral thalamus and medial temporal lobes. The convulsions were controlled by continuous thiopental infusion (until the 50th hospital day) and mechanical ventilation (until the 84th hospital day). Intravenous methylprednisolone pulse therapy (1,000 mg/day) for 3 days followed by dexamethasone (16 mg/day) was added. After relief of convulsive seizures, prominent orolingual dyskinesia appeared, and on MRI marked atrophy of the bilateral medial temporal lobes was seen. Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antibodies in serum and cerebrospinal fluid were positive on the 92nd hospital day. Anti-NMDAR encephalitis usually affects young females but a small number of male cases with this disease have been reported. Our male patient was unique in having GBS, a post-infectious autoimmune disease, as a preceding disease, suggesting that anti-NMDAR encephalitis itself is caused by a parainfectious autoimmune mechanism

Safety confirmation of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte patch transplantation for ischemic cardiomyopathy: first three case reports

IntroductionWith the expected increase in patients with heart failure and ischemic 15 cardiomyopathy, the development of myocardial regenerative medicine using cell transplantation as a novel treatment method is progressing. This first-in-human clinical trial aimed to confirm the safety of cardiomyocyte patch transplantation derived from allogeneic induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells based on the results of several preclinical studies.Study designThe inclusion criteria were left ventricular ejection fraction of 35% or less; heart failure symptoms of New York Heart Association class III or higher despite existing therapies such as revascularization; and a 1-year observation period that included a 3-month immunosuppressive drug administration period after transplantation of iPS cell-derived cardiomyocyte patches to evaluate adverse events, cardiac function, myocardial blood flow, heart failure symptoms, and immune response.ResultsIn the first three cases of this trial, no transplanted cell-related adverse events were observed during the 1-year observation period, and improvement in heart failure symptoms was observed. In addition, improvements in left ventricular contractility and myocardial blood flow were observed in two of the three patients. Regarding immune response, an increase in transplant cell-specific antibody titer was observed in all three patients after immunosuppressive drug administration. In one patient with poor improvement in cardiac function and myocardial blood flow, an increase in antibody titer against HLA-DQ was observed even before cell transplantation.ConclusionsOur case findings demonstrate that the transplantation of iPS cell-derived cardiomyocyte patches for ischemic cardiomyopathy can be safely performed; however, further investigation of the therapeutic effect and its relationship with an immune response is needed by accumulating the number of patients through continued clinical trials