89 research outputs found
Probabilistic Concept Bottleneck Models
Interpretable models are designed to make decisions in a human-interpretable
manner. Representatively, Concept Bottleneck Models (CBM) follow a two-step
process of concept prediction and class prediction based on the predicted
concepts. CBM provides explanations with high-level concepts derived from
concept predictions; thus, reliable concept predictions are important for
trustworthiness. In this study, we address the ambiguity issue that can harm
reliability. While the existence of a concept can often be ambiguous in the
data, CBM predicts concepts deterministically without considering this
ambiguity. To provide a reliable interpretation against this ambiguity, we
propose Probabilistic Concept Bottleneck Models (ProbCBM). By leveraging
probabilistic concept embeddings, ProbCBM models uncertainty in concept
prediction and provides explanations based on the concept and its corresponding
uncertainty. This uncertainty enhances the reliability of the explanations.
Furthermore, as class uncertainty is derived from concept uncertainty in
ProbCBM, we can explain class uncertainty by means of concept uncertainty. Code
is publicly available at https://github.com/ejkim47/prob-cbm.Comment: International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) 202
On the Powerfulness of Textual Outlier Exposure for Visual OoD Detection
Successful detection of Out-of-Distribution (OoD) data is becoming
increasingly important to ensure safe deployment of neural networks. One of the
main challenges in OoD detection is that neural networks output overconfident
predictions on OoD data, make it difficult to determine OoD-ness of data solely
based on their predictions. Outlier exposure addresses this issue by
introducing an additional loss that encourages low-confidence predictions on
OoD data during training. While outlier exposure has shown promising potential
in improving OoD detection performance, all previous studies on outlier
exposure have been limited to utilizing visual outliers. Drawing inspiration
from the recent advancements in vision-language pre-training, this paper
venture out to the uncharted territory of textual outlier exposure. First, we
uncover the benefits of using textual outliers by replacing real or virtual
outliers in the image-domain with textual equivalents. Then, we propose various
ways of generating preferable textual outliers. Our extensive experiments
demonstrate that generated textual outliers achieve competitive performance on
large-scale OoD and hard OoD benchmarks. Furthermore, we conduct empirical
analyses of textual outliers to provide primary criteria for designing
advantageous textual outliers: near-distribution, descriptiveness, and
inclusion of visual semantics.Comment: Accepted by NeurIPS 202
X-chromosome Inactivation Patterns in Korean Women with Idiopathic Recurrent Spontaneous Abortion
Recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA) defines as two or more consecutive losses at ≤20 weeks of gestation and affects an estimated 1 of every 100 couples wishing to have children. However, it remains a poorly understood phenomenon. Recent reports observed a significant association between highly skewed X chromosome and RSA, supporting that X chromosome inactivation might be an important and previously unknown cause of RSA. X-inactivation pattern, using polymeric X-linked women with idiopathic RSA and 80 control subjects with a single successful pregnancy and no history of spontaneous abortion. The ratio of heterozygotes was 68.2% (45/66) in women with RSA and 67.5% (54/80) in control group. Among 45 informative RSA cases, only 1 (2.2%) woman showed extreme skewed X inactivation (≥90%) and 4 (8.9%) had mild skewed inactivation (≥85%). In 54 heterozygous control subjects, 5 (9.3%) women showed extreme skewed X inactivation and 7 (13.0%) had mild one. The frequency of skewed X inactivation between RSA patients and control group was not significantly different (p>0.05). This finding suggests that skewed X chromosome be not associated with unexplained RSA patients
INSPIRE: A phase III study of the BLP25 liposome vaccine (L-BLP25) in Asian patients with unresectable stage III non-small cell lung cancer
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous research suggests the therapeutic cancer vaccine L-BLP25 potentially provides a survival benefit in patients with locally advanced unresectable stage III non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC). These promising findings prompted the phase III study, INSPIRE, in patients of East-Asian ethnicity. East-Asian ethnicity is an independent favourable prognostic factor for survival in NSCLC. The favourable prognosis is most likely due to a higher incidence of EGFR mutations among this patient population.</p> <p>Methods/design</p> <p>The primary objective of the INSPIRE study is to assess the treatment effect of L-BLP25 plus best supportive care (BSC), as compared to placebo plus BSC, on overall survival time in East-Asian patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC and either documented stable disease or an objective response according to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) criteria following primary chemoradiotherapy. Those in the L-BLP25 arm will receive a single intravenous infusion of cyclophosphamide (300 mg/m<sup>2</sup>) 3 days before the first L-BLP25 vaccination, with a corresponding intravenous infusion of saline to be given in the control arm. A primary treatment phase of 8 subcutaneous vaccinations of L-BLP25 930 μg or placebo at weekly intervals will be followed by a maintenance treatment phase of 6-weekly vaccinations continued until disease progression or discontinuation from the study.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The ongoing INSPIRE study is the first large study of a therapeutic cancer vaccine specifically in an East-Asian population. It evaluates the potential of maintenance therapy with L-BLP25 to prolong survival in East-Asian patients with stage III NSCLC where there are limited treatment options currently available.</p> <p>Study number</p> <p>EMR 63325-012</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>Clinicaltrials.gov reference: <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01015443">NCT01015443</a></p
Using C. elegans to discover therapeutic compounds for ageing-associated neurodegenerative diseases
Age-associated neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease are a major public health challenge, due to the demographic increase in the proportion of older individuals in society. However, the relatively few currently approved drugs for these conditions provide only symptomatic relief. A major goal of neurodegeneration research is therefore to identify potential new therapeutic compounds that can slow or even reverse disease progression, either by impacting directly on the neurodegenerative process or by activating endogenous physiological neuroprotective mechanisms that decline with ageing. This requires model systems that can recapitulate key features of human neurodegenerative diseases that are also amenable to compound screening approaches. Mammalian models are very powerful, but are prohibitively expensive for high-throughput drug screens. Given the highly conserved neurological pathways between mammals and invertebrates, Caenorhabditis elegans has emerged as a powerful tool for neuroprotective compound screening. Here we describe how C. elegans has been used to model various human ageing-associated neurodegenerative diseases and provide an extensive list of compounds that have therapeutic activity in these worm models and so may have translational potential
Development of bismuth tellurium selenide nanoparticles for thermoelectric applications via a chemical synthetic process
Bismuth tellurium selenide (Bi2TeySe3-y) nanoparticles for thermoelectric applications are successfully prepared via a water-based chemical reaction under atmospheric conditions. The nanostructured compound is prepared using a complexing agent (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) and a reducing agent (ascorbic acid) to stabilize the bismuth precursor (Bi(NO3)3) in water and to favor the reaction with reduced sources of tellurium and selenium. The resulting powder is smaller than ca. 100 nm and has a crystalline structure corresponding to the rhombohedral Bi 2Te2.7Se0.3. The nanocrystalline powder is sintered via a spark plasma sintering process to obtain a sintered body composed of nano-sized grains. Important transport properties of the sintered body are measured to calculate its most important characteristic, the thermoelectric performance. The results demonstrate a relationship between the nanostructure of the sintered body and its thermal conductivity. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fabrication of bismuth telluride nanoparticles using a chemical synthetic process and their thermoelectric evaluations
Bismuth telluride nanoparticles for thermoelectric applications were successfully prepared via a water-based chemical reaction. In this process, we used both a complexing agent (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) and a reducing agent (ascorbic acid) to stabilize the bismuth precursor (Bi(NO3)3) in water and to favor the reaction with the reduced source of tellurium. The resulting powder was confirmed to range in size below ca. 100nm with the crystalline structure corresponding to the rhmobohedral Bi2Te3. We sintered the nanocrystalline powder via a spark plasma sintering process, thus we obtained the sintered body composed of nano-sized grains. Then, we measured some important transport properties (electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity) of the sintered body to calculate its thermoelectric performance, the figure of merit. Finally, we discussed the effect of the nanostructure in the sintered body on the thermal conductivity. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.
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