Automatic Synonym Discovery with Knowledge Bases

Recognizing entity synonyms from text has become a crucial task in many entity-leveraging applications. However, discovering entity synonyms from domain-specific text corpora (e.g., news articles, scientific papers) is rather challenging. Current systems take an entity name string as input to find out other names that are synonymous, ignoring the fact that often times a name string can refer to multiple entities (e.g., "apple" could refer to both Apple Inc and the fruit apple). Moreover, most existing methods require training data manually created by domain experts to construct supervised-learning systems. In this paper, we study the problem of automatic synonym discovery with knowledge bases, that is, identifying synonyms for knowledge base entities in a given domain-specific corpus. The manually-curated synonyms for each entity stored in a knowledge base not only form a set of name strings to disambiguate the meaning for each other, but also can serve as "distant" supervision to help determine important features for the task. We propose a novel framework, called DPE, to integrate two kinds of mutually-complementing signals for synonym discovery, i.e., distributional features based on corpus-level statistics and textual patterns based on local contexts. In particular, DPE jointly optimizes the two kinds of signals in conjunction with distant supervision, so that they can mutually enhance each other in the training stage. At the inference stage, both signals will be utilized to discover synonyms for the given entities. Experimental results prove the effectiveness of the proposed framework

Resolving Anger toward God: Lament as an Avenue toward Attachment

Psychologists have mostly overlooked the topic of anger toward God. The current study tested an intervention based on the biblical psalms of lament, a consisting of 20 devotional readings and weekly experiential assignments, delivered electronically over a four-week period. A total of 192 college students at Christian institutions across the United States completed the study, and were randomly assigned to the experimental condition, an attention control condition, or a no-contact condition. The expected findings--that the experimental intervention would cause decreased feelings of anger and complaint toward God, as well as increased intimacy with God over time--were not confirmed. However, those participants who reported maximum compliance with the intervention showed increased ratings on Communion with God. Implications are discussed

What American Psychological Association Leaders Have to Say About Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

What do American Psychological Association (APA) leaders have to say about the new journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality? A survey was sent to 204 current APA council representatives and divisional residents, yielding 63 completed questionnaires (31% response rate). Respondents generally affirmed the importance of religion and spirituality as topics of inquiry in psychology. Although not highly religious themselves, respondents recognize religion and spirituality as important aspects of human diversity. In considering the new journal, current APA leaders who responded to the survey are particularly interested in articles relating religion and spirituality to health and coping and articles considering cross-cultural and interfaith issues

VLT/UVES Observations of Interstellar Molecules and Diffuse Bands in the Magellanic Clouds

We discuss the abundances of interstellar CH, CH+, and CN in the Magellanic Clouds (MC), derived from spectra of 7 SMC and 13 LMC stars obtained (mostly) with the VLT/UVES. CH and/or CH+ are detected toward 3 SMC and 9 LMC stars; CN is detected toward 2 stars. In the MC, the CH/H2 ratio is comparable to that found for diffuse Galactic molecular clouds in some sight lines, but is lower by factors up to 10-15 in others. The abundance of CH in the MC thus appears to depend on local physical conditions -- and not just on metallicity. The observed relationships between the column density of CH and those of CN, CH+, Na I, and K I in the MC are generally consistent with the trends observed in our Galaxy. Using existing data for the rotational populations of H2, we estimate temperatures, radiation field strengths, and local hydrogen densities for the diffuse molecular gas. Densities estimated from N(CH), assuming that CH is produced via steady-state gas-phase reactions, are considerably higher; much better agreement is found by assuming that the CH is made via the (still undetermined) process(es) responsible for the observed CH+. The UVES spectra also reveal absorption from the diffuse interstellar bands at 5780, 5797, and 6284 A in the MC. On average, the three DIBs are weaker by factors of 7-9 (LMC) and about 20 (SMC), compared to those observed in Galactic sight lines with similar N(H I), and by factors of order 2-6, relative to E(B-V), N(Na I), and N(K I). The detection of several of the ``C2 DIBs'', with strengths similar to those in comparable Galactic sight lines, however, indicates that no single, uniform scaling factor (e.g., one related to metallicity) applies to all DIBs (or all sight lines) in the MC. (abstract abridged)Comment: 59 pages, 15 figures, 10 tables; aastex; accepted to ApJ

COVID-19 and non-COVID ARDS patients demonstrate a distinct response to low dose steroids- A retrospective observational study

Patients with COVID-19 ARDS have distinct physiological and immunological phenotypes compared to patients with non-COVID ARDS. Patients with COVID-19 ARDS (n = 32) had a significant improvement in PaO2: FiO2 ratio (p = 0.046) following low-dose steroid treatment, unlike patients with non-COVID ARDS (n = 16) (p = 0.529). Patients with COVID-19 ARDS had a greater fall in CRP compared to patients with non-COVID ARDS, albeit not statistically significant (p = 0.07). Our novel findings highlight differences in the underlying physiological and immunological phenotypes between COVID-19 and non-COVID ARDS, with implications for future ARDS studies

Hard X-ray flares in IGR J08408-4503 unveil clumpy stellar winds

Context : A 1000-s flare from a new hard X-ray transient, IGR J08408-4503, was observed by INTEGRAL on May 15, 2006 during the real-time routine monitoring of IBIS/ISGRI images performed at the INTEGRAL Science Data Centre. The flare, detected during a single one-hour long pointing, peaked at 250 mCrab in the 20-40 keV energy range. Aims : Multi-wavelength observations, combining high-energy and optical data, were used to unveil the nature of IGR J08408-4503. Methods : A search in all INTEGRAL public data for other bursts from IGR J08408-4503 was performed, and the detailed analysis of another major flare is presented. The results of two Swift Target of Opportunity observations are also described. Finally, a study of the likely optical counterpart, HD 74194, is provided. Results : IGR J08408-4503 is very likely a supergiant fast X-ray transient (SFXT) system. The system parameters indicate that the X-ray flares are probably related to the accretion of wind clumps on a compact object orbiting about 1E13 cm from the supergiant HD 74194. The clump mass loss rate is of the order of 1E-6 solar mass/yr. Conclusions : Hard X-ray flares from SFXTs allow to probe the stellar winds of massive stars, and could possibly be associated with wind perturbations due to line-driven instabilities.Comment: 5 pages with 5 figures. Published as a Letter in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Safety and Pharmacokinetics of a Four Monoclonal Antibody Combination Against Botulinum C and D Neurotoxins.

Botulism is caused by botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT), the most poisonous substance known. BoNTs are also classified as Tier 1 biothreat agents due to their high potency and lethality. The existence of seven BoNT serotypes (A-G), which differ between 35% to 68% in amino acid sequence, necessitates the development of serotype specific countermeasures. We present results of a Phase 1 clinical study of an anti-toxin to BoNT serotypes C and D, NTM-1634, which consists of an equimolar mixture of four fully human IgG1 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), each binding to non-overlapping epitopes on BoNT serotypes C and D resulting in potent toxin neutralization in rodents. This first-in-human study evaluated the safety and pharmacokinetics of escalating doses of NTM-1634 administered intravenously to healthy adults (NCT03046550). Three cohorts of eight healthy subjects received a single intravenous dose of NTM-1634 or placebo at 0.33 mg/kg, 0.66 mg/kg or 1 mg/kg. Follow-up examinations and pharmacokinetic evaluations were continued up to 121 days post-infusion. Subjects were monitored using physical examinations, hematology and chemistry blood tests, and electrocardiograms. Pharmacokinetic parameters were estimated using noncompartmental methods. The results demonstrated that the materials were safe and well-tolerated with the expected half-lives for human mAbs and with minimal anti-drug antibodies detected over the dose ranges and duration of the study

Optical Structure and Proper-Motion Age of the Oxygen-rich Supernova Remnant 1E 0102-7219 in the Small Magellanic Cloud

We present new optical emission-line images of the young SNR 1E 0102-7219 (E0102) in the SMC obtained with the HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). E0102 is a member of the oxygen-rich class of SNRs showing strong oxygen, neon , and other metal-line emissions in its optical and X-ray spectra, and an absence of H and He. The progenitor of E0102 may have been a Wolf-Rayet star that underwent considerable mass loss prior to exploding as a Type Ib/c or IIL/b SN. The ejecta in this SNR are fast-moving (V > 1000 km/s) and emit as they are compressed and heated in the reverse shock. In 2003, we obtained optical [O III], H-alpha, and continuum images with the ACS Wide Field Camera. The [O III] image captures the full velocity range of the ejecta, and shows considerable high-velocity emission projected in the middle of the SNR that was Doppler-shifted out of the narrow F502N bandpass of a previous Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 image from 1995. Using these two epochs separated by ~8.5 years, we measure the transverse expansion of the ejecta around the outer rim in this SNR for the first time at visible wavelengths. From proper-motion measurements of 12 ejecta filaments, we estimate a mean expansion velocity for the bright ejecta of ~2000 km/s and an inferred kinematic age for the SNR of \~2050 +/- 600 years. The age we derive from HST data is about twice that inferred by Hughes et al.(2000) from X-ray data, though our 1-sigma error bars overlap. Our proper-motion age is consistent with an independent optical kinematic age derived by Eriksen et al.(2003) using spatially resolved [O III] radial-velocity data. We derive an expansion center that lies very close to X-ray and radio hotspots, which could indicate the presence of a compact remnant (neutron star or black hole).Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures. Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, to appear in 20 April 2006 issue. Full resolution figures are posted at: http://stevenf.asu.edu/figure

Theoretical study of the dynamic structure factor of superfluid 4He

We study the dynamic structure factor $S(\vec{q},\omega)$ of superfluid 4He at zero temperature in the roton momentum region and beyond using field-theoretical Green's function techniques. We start from the Gavoret-Nozi\`{e}res two-particle propagator and introduce the concept of quasiparticles. We treat the residual (weak) interaction between quasiparticles as being local in coordinate space and weakly energy dependent. Our quasiparticle model explicitly incorporates the Bose-Einstein condensate. A complete formula for the dynamic susceptibility, which is related to $S (\vec{q},\omega)$, is derived. The structure factor is numerically calculated in a self-consistent way in the special case of a momentum independent interaction between quasiparticles. Results are compared with experiment and other theoretical approaches.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figure