A Multi-modal Approach to Fine-grained Opinion Mining on Video Reviews

Despite the recent advances in opinion mining for written reviews, few works have tackled the problem on other sources of reviews. In light of this issue, we propose a multi-modal approach for mining fine-grained opinions from video reviews that is able to determine the aspects of the item under review that are being discussed and the sentiment orientation towards them. Our approach works at the sentence level without the need for time annotations and uses features derived from the audio, video and language transcriptions of its contents. We evaluate our approach on two datasets and show that leveraging the video and audio modalities consistently provides increased performance over text-only baselines, providing evidence these extra modalities are key in better understanding video reviews.Comment: Second Grand Challenge and Workshop on Multimodal Language ACL 202

New Approach to Silver Halide Photography Using Radical Cation Chemistry

A new mechanism for spectral sensitization of silver halide is described, which can potentially double the sensitivity of photographic emulsions. The photooxidized sensitizing dye is trapped using an organic donor molecule, which fragments to form a cation and a reducing radical, which injects an electron into the conduction band of the silver halide. In this way, two conduction-band electrons can be produced for each absorbed photon

Chikungunya virus adapts to tiger mosquito via evolutionary convergence: a sign of things to come?

Since 2004, several million indigenous cases of Chikungunya virus disease occurred in Africa, the Indian Ocean, India, Asia and, recently, Europe. The virus, usually transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, has now repeatedly been associated with a new vector, Ae. Albopictus. Analysis of full-length viral sequences reveals three independent events of virus exposure to Ae. Albopictus, each followed by the acquisition of a single adaptive mutation providing selective advantage for transmission by this mosquito. This disconcerting and current unique example of "evolutionary convergence" occurring in nature illustrates rapid pathogen adaptation to ecological perturbation, driven directly as a consequence of human activities

The Absolute Magnitude of RRc Variables From Statistical Parallax

We present the first definitive measurement of the absolute magnitude of RR Lyrae c-type variable stars (RRc) determined purely from statistical parallax. We use a sample of 247 RRc selected from the All Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) for which high-quality light curves, photometry and proper motions are available. We obtain high-resolution echelle spectra for these objects to determine radial velocities and abundances as part of the Carnegie RR Lyrae Survey (CARRS). We find that M_(V,RRc) = 0.52 +/- 0.11 at a mean metallicity of [Fe/H] = -1.59. This is to be compared with previous estimates for RRab stars (M_(V,RRab) = 0.75 +/- 0.13 and the only direct measurement of an RRc absolute magnitude (RZ Cephei, M_(V, RRc) = 0.27 +/- 0.17). We find the bulk velocity of the halo to be (W_pi, W_theta, W_z) = (10.9,34.9,7.2) km/s in the radial, rotational and vertical directions with dispersions (sigma_(W_pi), sigma_(W_theta), sigma_(W_z)) = (154.7, 103.6, 93.8) km/s. For the disk, we find (W_pi, W_theta, W_z) = (8.5, 213.2, -22.1) km/s with dispersions (sigma_(W_pi), sigma_(W_theta), sigma_(W_z)) = (63.5, 49.6, 51.3) km/s. Finally, we suggest that UCAC2 proper motion errors may be overestimated by about 25%Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 11 pages including 6 figure

Recommendations for validation testing of home pregnancy tests (HPTs) in Europe

Homepregnancy tests (HPTs) available in Europe include accuracy and other performance claims listed on their packaging. Due to the lack of guidance on the standardisation of such products, it is often difficult to replicate these claims when tested on a clinical sample, whether in a laboratory setting or by lay users. The In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation is a set of requirements that mandate comprehensive validation data on human pregnancy tests and other in vitro devices. It is due to replace the current European Directive (98/79/EC) and fully implemented in Europe by 2022. In June 2019, a panel of seven experts convened to discuss the validation studies required to provide the information needed to meet the new regulation for HPTs in Europe and proposed 15 recommendations for best practice. Defining best practice at all stages of validation of these important tests may ensure that tests marketed inEurope are fit for purpose, enabling lay users to be confident of the high quality of the HPT results they obtain. The panelists believe that the recommendations proposed here for the validation of HPTs may constructively contribute to improved standardisation of validation procedures in Europe.Peer reviewe

Uniform patchy and hollow rectangular platelet micelles from crystallizable polymer blends

Growing patterned rectangular objects The growth of patterned objects usually requires a template to aid the positioning of multiple materials. Qiu et al. used the seeded growth of a crystallizable block copolymer and a homopolymer to produce highly uniform rectangular structures (see the Perspective by Ballauff). Chemical etching, or dissolution, of uncross-linked regions of the rectangular structures produced perforated platelet micelles. The sequential addition of different blends and cross-linking/dissolution strategies allowed the formation of well-defined hollow rectangular micelles, which can be functionalized in a variety of ways. Science , this issue p. 697 ; see also p. 656 </jats:p