IRISA and KUL at MediaEval 2014: Search and Hyperlinking Task

International audienceThis paper presents our approach and results in the hyper-linking sub-task at MediaEval 2014. A two step approach is implemented: relying on a topic segmentation technique, the first step consists in generating potential target segments; then, for each anchor, the best 20 target segments are selected according to two distinct strategies: the first one focuses on the identification of very similar targets using n-grams and named entities; the second one makes use of an intermediate structure built from topic models, which offers the possibility to control serendipity and to explain the links created

Francine Tabasa Lopes interviewed by Una Lynch, Christina Ayson Plank, and Meleia Simon-Reynolds

In this interview, originally recorded in-person at Paradise Villa Assisted Living and Memory Care in Live Oak, California, Francine Tabasa Lopes speaks with Una Lynch, Christina Ayson Plank, and Meleia Simon-Reynolds, members of the Watsonville is in the Heart team. Francine shares stories about her parents, Jesus Torrente Tabasa and Rosita "Rosie" Dionisio Tabasa-Estrada. She explains how her parents migrated to the United States from the Philippines during the 1920s and 1930s and eventually settled in Watsonville. Francine discusses Jesus's agricultural labor and the restaurants and other businesses both of her parents owned and operated in Watsonville. She provides details about Rosie's restaurant business, Philippine Gardens (originally Oriental Cafe). She describes the restaurant's various locations in downtown Watsonville and the gambling operations that existed within the restaurant. Francine also reflects on her experiences growing up under the care of her maternal grandmother, Benita Carpio Dionisio

Smoking-induced long-lasting modifications of human platelet serotonin catabolism through a MAO epigenetic regulation

Postulating that serotonin, secreted from smoking-activated platelets, could be involved in smoking-induced vascular modifications, we studied 115 men distributed in smokers (S), former smokers (FS) and never smokers (NS). The platelet serotonin content was similar in S and NS but lower in FS. This was unexpected because the monoamine oxidase (MAO) activity, which catabolizes serotonin, was inhibited during smoking. However, the amount of platelet MAO was higher in S and FS than in NS. The persistent elevated MAO amount in FS prompted us to study the methylation of its gene promoter in an additional series of patients: it was markedly lower for S and FS vs. NS due to cigarette smoke-induced increase of nucleic acid demethylase activity. This smoking-induced demethylation of the MAO gene promoter, resulting in high MAO amount persisting long after quitting smoking, has cardiovascular consequences and could impact fields such as behavior, mental health, and cancer

Talk2Car: Taking Control of Your Self-Driving Car

A long-term goal of artificial intelligence is to have an agent execute commands communicated through natural language. In many cases the commands are grounded in a visual environment shared by the human who gives the command and the agent. Execution of the command then requires mapping the command into the physical visual space, after which the appropriate action can be taken. In this paper we consider the former. Or more specifically, we consider the problem in an autonomous driving setting, where a passenger requests an action that can be associated with an object found in a street scene. Our work presents the Talk2Car dataset, which is the first object referral dataset that contains commands written in natural language for self-driving cars. We provide a detailed comparison with related datasets such as ReferIt, RefCOCO, RefCOCO+, RefCOCOg, Cityscape-Ref and CLEVR-Ref. Additionally, we include a performance analysis using strong state-of-the-art models. The results show that the proposed object referral task is a challenging one for which the models show promising results but still require additional research in natural language processing, computer vision and the intersection of these fields. The dataset can be found on our website: http://macchina-ai.eu/Comment: 14 pages, accepted at emnlp-ijcnlp 2019 - Added Talk2Nav Referenc

Intracellular localization of the BCL-2 family member BOK and functional implications

The pro-apoptotic BCL-2 family member BOK is widely expressed and resembles the multi-BH domain proteins BAX and BAK based on its amino acid sequence. The genomic region encoding BOK was reported to be frequently deleted in human cancer and it has therefore been hypothesized that BOK functions as a tumor suppressor. However, little is known about the molecular functions of BOK. We show that enforced expression of BOK activates the intrinsic (mitochondrial) apoptotic pathway in BAX/BAK-proficient cells but fails to kill cells lacking both BAX and BAK or sensitize them to cytotoxic insults. Interestingly, major portions of endogenous BOK are localized to and partially inserted into the membranes of the Golgi apparatus as well as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and associated membranes. The C-terminal transmembrane domain of BOK thereby constitutes a 'tail-anchor' specific for targeting to the Golgi and ER. Overexpression of full-length BOK causes early fragmentation of ER and Golgi compartments. A role for BOK on the Golgi apparatus and the ER is supported by an abnormal response of Bok-deficient cells to the Golgi/ER stressor brefeldin A. Based on these results, we propose that major functions of BOK are exerted at the Golgi and ER membranes and that BOK induces apoptosis in a manner dependent on BAX and BAK

Four-color flow cytometry bypasses limitations of IG/TCR polymerase chain reaction for minimal residual disease detection in certain subsets of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

International audienceBACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Competitive immunoglobulin/T-cell receptor polymerase-chain reaction (PCR) analysis with fluorescent detection is a rapid, cheap and reproducible method for quantifying minimal residual disease (MRD), which is well adapted to the recognition of high-risk childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We aimed at defining whether flow cytometry (FC) techniques can bypass limitations of PCR for MRD determination. DESIGN AND METHODS: We analyzed 140 remission samples from 91 patients using both competitive PCR amplification of antigen-receptor genes and four-color FC identification of leukemia immunophenotype. These methods were chosen with the aim of detecting at least 0.1% blasts. RESULTS: MRD was measured using both PCR and FC methods in 123 samples and the two methods provided concordant results in 119 of them (97%). Moreover, three out of the four discordant results appeared minor since MRD was detectable by both methods, but at different levels. In 12 of 13 samples from nine patients, mainly infants with early CD10- and/or t(4;11) B-cell ALL and children with immature T-cell ALL, MRD could be determined using FC whereas PCR failed. Conversely, FC methods were unfeasible due to inappropriate leukemia immunophenotype in three additional children (including two with T-cell ALL) for whom PCR successfully provided MRD results. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: The MRD results provided by FC techniques were highly concordant with those of competitive PCR. Moreover, the applicability of FC appeared higher in certain ALL subsets, although the appropriateness of this technique in terms of outcome prediction remains to be demonstrated