Few-Shot Character Understanding in Movies as an Assessment to Meta-Learning of Theory-of-Mind

When reading a story, humans can rapidly understand new fictional characters with a few observations, mainly by drawing analogy to fictional and real people they met before in their lives. This reflects the few-shot and meta-learning essence of humans' inference of characters' mental states, i.e., humans' theory-of-mind (ToM), which is largely ignored in existing research. We fill this gap with a novel NLP benchmark, TOM-IN-AMC, the first assessment of models' ability of meta-learning of ToM in a realistic narrative understanding scenario. Our benchmark consists of $\sim$1,000 parsed movie scripts for this purpose, each corresponding to a few-shot character understanding task; and requires models to mimic humans' ability of fast digesting characters with a few starting scenes in a new movie. Our human study verified that humans can solve our problem by inferring characters' mental states based on their previously seen movies; while the state-of-the-art metric-learning and meta-learning approaches adapted to our task lags 30% behind

Plugging Behavior of Polymer Gel in Fractures by Multi-Slug Injection

In order to understand the plugging mechanism, experiments of multi-slug gel plugging in single fracture and multiple fractures system were simulated by indoor visual fracture models. The experiments showed that there were two stages in the process of multi-slug gel plugging in single fracture: gel filling stage and gel compaction stage. When the total injection of gel is consistent, the brine flooding pressure gradient after multi-slug gel injection increased more than 2 times than the pressure gradient after single slug gel continuous injection. While there were three stages in the process of multi-slug gel plugging in multiple fractures system: Gel selectively entrance stage, gel filling stage and gel compaction stage. However, there would be no gel compaction stage, even no gel filling stage in the process of single cycle gel plugging in multiple fractures system.Key words: Fractured reservoir; Multi-slug; Polymer gel; Plugging proces

Uncertainty-reduction or reciprocity? Understanding the effects of a platform-initiated reviewer incentive program on regular review generation

To stimulate product reviews, many e-commerce platforms have launched reviewer incentive programs in which free product samples are provided to reviewers in exchange for their ratings of the samples. This study focuses on an unexplored aspect of reviewer incentive programs—the impact of participating in such programs on reviewers’ ratings of products they purchased normally (i.e., regular ratings). We find that after reviewers join the program and receive free product samples, their average regular rating increases by 2.25% (i.e., 0.093 more stars on the five-star scale). Our follow-up analyses indicate that the observed regular-rating increase can be attributed to an uncertainty-reduction effect evoked by the free product samples, as opposed to a reciprocity effect. We further delve into the underlying mechanism by analyzing the reviewers’ regular ratings at a granular, product-category level. Consistent with our theorization of the uncertainty-reduction effect, our findings reveal that reviewers’ regular-rating increase is driven by improved assessment and knowledge about products sharing common attributes with the sampled products, resulting in better post-purchase outcomes. Our results demonstrate that apart from motivating the feedback for the sampled products, free product sampling can reduce reviewers’ product uncertainty and trigger evident change in their regular ratings for the purchased products.First author draf

Global wave loads on a damaged ship

A computational tool was applied based on a two dimensional linear method to predict the hydrodynamic loads for damaged ships. Experimental tests on a ship model have also been carried out to predict the hydrodynamic loads in various design conditions. The results of the theoretical method and experimental tests are compared to validate the theoretical method. The extreme wave induced loads have been calculated by short term prediction. For the loads in intact condition, the prediction with duration of 20 years at sea state 5 is used, while for loads in damaged conditions the prediction in 96 hours exposure time at sea 3 is used. The maximum values of the most probable extreme amplitudes of dynamic wave induced loads in damaged conditions are much less than those in intact condition because of the reduced time. An opening could change the distribution of not only stillwater bending moment but also wave-induced bending moment. It is observed that although some cross sections are not structurally damaged, the total loads acting on these cross sections after damage may be increased dramatically compared to the original design load in intact condition

Identification of S100A8-correlated genes for prediction of disease progression in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>S100 calcium binding protein A8 </it>(<it>S100A8</it>) has been implicated as a prognostic indicator in several types of cancer. However, previous studies are limited in their ability to predict the clinical behavior of the cancer. Here, we sought to identify a molecular signature based on <it>S100A8 </it>expression and to assess its usefulness as a prognostic indicator of disease progression in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used 103 primary NMIBC specimens for microarray gene expression profiling. The median follow-up period for all patients was 57.6 months (range: 3.2 to 137.0 months). Various statistical methods, including the leave-one-out cross validation method, were applied to identify a gene expression signature able to predict the likelihood of progression. The prognostic value of the gene expression signature was validated in an independent cohort (n = 302).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Kaplan-Meier estimates revealed significant differences in disease progression associated with the expression signature of <it>S100A8</it>-correlated genes (log-rank test, <it>P </it>< 0.001). Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that the expression signature of <it>S100A8</it>-correlated genes was a strong predictor of disease progression (hazard ratio = 15.225, 95% confidence interval = 1.746 to 133.52, <it>P </it>= 0.014). We validated our results in an independent cohort and confirmed that this signature produced consistent prediction patterns. Finally, gene network analyses of the signature revealed that <it>S100A8</it>, <it>IL1B</it>, and <it>S100A9 </it>could be important mediators of the progression of NMIBC.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The prognostic molecular signature defined by <it>S100A8</it>-correlated genes represents a promising diagnostic tool for the identification of NMIBC patients that have a high risk of progression to muscle invasive bladder cancer.</p

The Photon Ring in M87*

We report measurements of the gravitationally lensed secondary image—the first in an infinite series of so-called “photon rings”—around the supermassive black hole M87* via simultaneous modeling and imaging of the 2017 Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observations. The inferred ring size remains constant across the seven days of the 2017 EHT observing campaign and is consistent with theoretical expectations, providing clear evidence that such measurements probe spacetime and a striking confirmation of the models underlying the first set of EHT results. The residual diffuse emission evolves on timescales comparable to one week. We are able to detect with high significance a southwestern extension consistent with that expected from the base of a jet that is rapidly rotating in the clockwise direction. This result adds further support to the identification of the jet in M87* with a black hole spin-driven outflow, launched via the Blandford-Znajek process. We present three revised estimates for the mass of M87* based on identifying the modeled thin ring component with the bright ringlike features seen in simulated images, one of which is only weakly sensitive to the astrophysics of the emission region. All three estimates agree with each other and previously reported values. Our strongest mass constraint combines information from both the ring and the diffuse emission region, which together imply a mass-to-distance ratio of 4.20 − 0.06 + 0.12 μ as and a corresponding black hole mass of (7.13 \ub1 0.39) 7 109 M ⊙, where the error on the latter is now dominated by the systematic uncertainty arising from the uncertain distance to M87*

Combined inhibition of Bcl-2 family members and YAP induces synthetic lethality in metastatic gastric cancer with RASA1 and NF2 deficiency

Background Targetable molecular drivers of gastric cancer (GC) metastasis remain largely unidentified, leading to limited targeted therapy options for advanced GC. We aimed to identify molecular drivers for metastasis and devise corresponding therapeutic strategies. Methods We performed an unbiased in vivo genome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 knockout (KO) screening in peritoneal dissemination using genetically engineered GC mouse models. Candidate genes were validated through in vivo transplantation assays using KO cells. We analyzed target expression patterns in GC clinical samples using immunohistochemistry. The functional contributions of target genes were studied through knockdown, KO, and overexpression approaches in tumorsphere and organoid assays. Small chemical inhibitors against Bcl-2 members and YAP were tested in vitro and in vivo. Results We identified Nf2 and Rasa1 as metastasis-suppressing genes through the screening. Clinically, RASA1 mutations along with low NF2 expression define a distinct molecular subtype of metastatic GC exhibiting aggressive traits. NF2 and RASA1 deficiency increased in vivo metastasis and in vitro tumorsphere formation by synergistically amplifying Wnt and YAP signaling in cancer stem cells (CSCs). NF2 deficiency enhanced Bcl-2-mediated Wnt signaling, conferring resistance to YAP inhibition in CSCs. This resistance was counteracted via synthetic lethality achieved by simultaneous inhibition of YAP and Bcl-2. RASA1 deficiency amplified the Wnt pathway via Bcl-xL, contributing to cancer stemness. RASA1 mutation created vulnerability to Bcl-xL inhibition, but the additional NF2 deletion conferred resistance to Bcl-xL inhibition due to YAP activation. The combined inhibition of Bcl-xL and YAP synergistically suppressed cancer stemness and in vivo metastasis in RASA1 and NF2 co-deficiency. Conclusion Our research unveils the intricate interplay between YAP and Bcl-2 family members, which can lead to synthetic lethality, offering a potential strategy to overcome drug resistance. Importantly, our findings support a personalized medicine approach where combined therapy targeting YAP and Bcl-2, tailored to NF2 and RASA1 status, could effectively manage metastatic GC.This research was supported by grants of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Korean government (NRF-RS-2023–00208984, NRF-2021M3H9A1030260, NRF-2021R1F1A1051220, NRF-2016M3A9D5A01952416)