50 research outputs found
C-CLIP: Contrastive Image-Text Encoders to Close the Descriptive-Commentative Gap
The interplay between the image and comment on a social media post is one of
high importance for understanding its overall message. Recent strides in
multimodal embedding models, namely CLIP, have provided an avenue forward in
relating image and text. However the current training regime for CLIP models is
insufficient for matching content found on social media, regardless of site or
language. Current CLIP training data is based on what we call ``descriptive''
text: text in which an image is merely described. This is something rarely seen
on social media, where the vast majority of text content is ``commentative'' in
nature. The captions provide commentary and broader context related to the
image, rather than describing what is in it. Current CLIP models perform poorly
on retrieval tasks where image-caption pairs display a commentative
relationship. Closing this gap would be beneficial for several important
application areas related to social media. For instance, it would allow groups
focused on Open-Source Intelligence Operations (OSINT) to further aid efforts
during disaster events, such as the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, by
easily exposing data to non-technical users for discovery and analysis. In
order to close this gap we demonstrate that training contrastive image-text
encoders on explicitly commentative pairs results in large improvements in
retrieval results, with the results extending across a variety of non-English
languages.Comment: 11 Pages, 5 Figure
MEWS: Real-time Social Media Manipulation Detection and Analysis
This article presents a beta-version of MEWS (Misinformation Early Warning
System). It describes the various aspects of the ingestion, manipulation
detection, and graphing algorithms employed to determine--in near
real-time--the relationships between social media images as they emerge and
spread on social media platforms. By combining these various technologies into
a single processing pipeline, MEWS can identify manipulated media items as they
arise and identify when these particular items begin trending on individual
social media platforms or even across multiple platforms. The emergence of a
novel manipulation followed by rapid diffusion of the manipulated content
suggests a disinformation campaign
Automatic Discovery of Political Meme Genres with Diverse Appearances
Forms of human communication are not static -- we expect some evolution in
the way information is conveyed over time because of advances in technology.
One example of this phenomenon is the image-based meme, which has emerged as a
dominant form of political messaging in the past decade. While originally used
to spread jokes on social media, memes are now having an outsized impact on
public perception of world events. A significant challenge in automatic meme
analysis has been the development of a strategy to match memes from within a
single genre when the appearances of the images vary. Such variation is
especially common in memes exhibiting mimicry. For example, when voters perform
a common hand gesture to signal their support for a candidate. In this paper we
introduce a scalable automated visual recognition pipeline for discovering
political meme genres of diverse appearance. This pipeline can ingest meme
images from a social network, apply computer vision-based techniques to extract
local features and index new images into a database, and then organize the
memes into related genres. To validate this approach, we perform a large case
study on the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Election using a new dataset of over
two million images collected from Twitter and Instagram. Results show that this
approach can discover new meme genres with visually diverse images that share
common stylistic elements, paving the way forward for further work in semantic
analysis and content attribution.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure
Small UAS Detect and Avoid Requirements Necessary for Limited Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Operations
Potential small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operational scenarios/use cases and Detect And Avoid (DAA) approaches were collected through a number of industry wide data calls. Every 333 Exemption holder was solicited for this same information. Summary information from more than 5,000 exemption holders is documented, and the information received had varied level of detail but has given relevant experiential information to generalize use cases. A plan was developed and testing completed to assess Radio Line Of Sight (RLOS), a potential key limiting factors for safe BVLOS ops. Details of the equipment used, flight test area, test payload, and fixtures for testing at different altitudes is presented and the resulting comparison of a simplified mathematical model, an online modeling tool, and flight data are provided. An Operational Framework that defines the environment, conditions, constraints, and limitations under which the recommended requirements will enable sUAS operations BVLOS is presented. The framework includes strategies that can build upon Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and industry actions that should result in an increase in BVLOS flights in the near term.
Evaluating approaches to sUAS DAA was accomplished through five subtasks: literature review of pilot and ground observer see and avoid performance, survey of DAA criteria and recommended baseline performance, survey of existing/developing DAA technologies and performance, assessment of risks of selected DAA approaches, and flight testing. Pilot and ground observer see and avoid performance were evaluated through a literature review. Development of DAA criteriaβthe emphasis here being well clearβ was accomplished through working with the Science And Research Panel (SARP) and through simulations of manned and unmanned aircraft interactions. Information regarding sUAS DAA approaches was collected through a literature review, requests for information, and direct interactions. These were analyzed through delineation of system type and definition of metrics and metric values. Risks associated with sUAS DAA systems were assessed by focusing on the Safety Risk Management (SRM) pillar of the SMS (Safety Management System) process. This effort (1) identified hazards related to the operation of sUAS in BVLOS, (2) offered a preliminary risk assessment considering existing controls, and (3) recommended additional controls and mitigations to further reduce risk to the lowest practical level. Finally, flight tests were conducted to collect preliminary data regarding well clear and DAA system hazards
The degree of segmental aneuploidy measured by total copy number abnormalities predicts survival and recurrence in superficial gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma
Background: Prognostic biomarkers are needed for superficial gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) to predict clinical outcomes and select therapy. Although recurrent mutations have been characterized in EAC, little is known about their clinical and prognostic significance. Aneuploidy is predictive of clinical outcome in many malignancies but has not been evaluated in superficial EAC. Methods: We quantified copy number changes in 41 superficial EAC using Affymetrix SNP 6.0 arrays. We identified recurrent chromosomal gains and losses and calculated the total copy number abnormality (CNA) count for each tumor as a measure of aneuploidy. We correlated CNA count with overall survival and time to first recurrence in univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Recurrent segmental gains and losses involved multiple genes, including: HER2, EGFR, MET, CDK6, KRAS (recurrent gains); and FHIT, WWOX, CDKN2A/B, SMAD4, RUNX1 (recurrent losses). There was a 40-fold variation in CNA count across all cases. Tumors with the lowest and highest quartile CNA count had significantly better overall survival (p = 0.032) and time to first recurrence (p = 0.010) compared to those with intermediate CNA counts. These associations persisted when controlling for other prognostic variables. Significance: SNP arrays facilitate the assessment of recurrent chromosomal gain and loss and allow high resolution, quantitative assessment of segmental aneuploidy (total CNA count). The non-monotonic association of segmental aneuploidy with survival has been described in other tumors. The degree of aneuploidy is a promising prognostic biomarker in a potentially curable form of EAC. Β© 2014 Davison et al
Longitudinal, population-based study of racial/ethnic differences in colorectal cancer survival: impact of neighborhood socioeconomic status, treatment and comorbidity
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Colorectal cancer, if detected early, has greater than 90% 5-year survival. However, survival has been shown to vary across racial/ethnic groups in the United States, despite the availability of early detection methods.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study evaluated the joint effects of sociodemographic factors, tumor characteristics, census-based socioeconomic status (SES), treatment, and comorbidities on survival after colorectal cancer among and within racial/ethnic groups, using the SEER-Medicare database for patients diagnosed in 1992β1996, and followed through 1999.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Unadjusted colorectal cancer-specific mortality rates were higher among Blacks and Hispanic males than whites (relative rates (95% confidence intervals) = 1.34 (1.26β1.42) and 1.16 (1.04β1.29), respectively), and lower among Japanese (0.78 (0.70β0.88)). These patterns were evident for all-cause mortality, although the magnitude of the disparity was larger for colorectal cancer mortality. Adjustment for stage accounted for the higher rate among Hispanic males and most of the lower rate among Japanese. Among Blacks, stage and SES accounted for about half of the higher rate relative to Whites, and within stage III colon and stages II/III rectal cancer, SES completely accounted for the small differentials in survival between Blacks and Whites. Comorbidity did not appear to explain the Black-White differentials in colorectal-specific nor all-cause mortality, beyond stage, and treatment (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy) explained a very small proportion of the Black-White difference. The fully-adjusted relative mortality rates comparing Blacks to Whites was 1.14 (1.09β1.20) for all-cause mortality and 1.21 (1.14β1.29) for colorectal cancer specific mortality. The sociodemographic, tumor, and treatment characteristics also had different impacts on mortality within racial/ethnic groups.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this comprehensive analysis, race/ethnic-specific models revealed differential effects of covariates on survival after colorectal cancer within each group, suggesting that different strategies may be necessary to improve survival in each group. Among Blacks, half of the differential in survival after colorectal cancer was primarily attributable to stage and SES, but differences in survival between Blacks and Whites remain unexplained with the data available in this comprehensive, population-based, analysis.</p
Modulation of the Ξ²-Catenin Signaling Pathway by the Dishevelled-Associated Protein Hipk1
BACKGROUND:Wnts are evolutionarily conserved ligands that signal through beta-catenin-dependent and beta-catenin-independent pathways to regulate cell fate, proliferation, polarity, and movements during vertebrate development. Dishevelled (Dsh/Dvl) is a multi-domain scaffold protein required for virtually all known Wnt signaling activities, raising interest in the identification and functions of Dsh-associated proteins. METHODOLOGY:We conducted a yeast-2-hybrid screen using an N-terminal fragment of Dsh, resulting in isolation of the Xenopus laevis ortholog of Hipk1. Interaction between the Dsh and Hipk1 proteins was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation assays and mass spectrometry, and further experiments suggest that Hipk1 also complexes with the transcription factor Tcf3. Supporting a nuclear function during X. laevis development, Myc-tagged Hipk1 localizes primarily to the nucleus in animal cap explants, and the endogenous transcript is strongly expressed during gastrula and neurula stages. Experimental manipulations of Hipk1 levels indicate that Hipk1 can repress Wnt/beta-catenin target gene activation, as demonstrated by beta-catenin reporter assays in human embryonic kidney cells and by indicators of dorsal specification in X. laevis embryos at the late blastula stage. In addition, a subset of Wnt-responsive genes subsequently requires Hipk1 for activation in the involuting mesoderm during gastrulation. Moreover, either over-expression or knock-down of Hipk1 leads to perturbed convergent extension cell movements involved in both gastrulation and neural tube closure. CONCLUSIONS:These results suggest that Hipk1 contributes in a complex fashion to Dsh-dependent signaling activities during early vertebrate development. This includes regulating the transcription of Wnt/beta-catenin target genes in the nucleus, possibly in both repressive and activating ways under changing developmental contexts. This regulation is required to modulate gene expression and cell movements that are essential for gastrulation
The city superintendent and the board of education,
Bibliography: p. 133-137.Mode of access: Internet
Image Provenance Analysis
The literature of multimedia forensics is mainly dedicated to the analysis of single assets (such as sole image or video files), aiming at individually assessing their authenticity. Different from this, image provenance analysis is devoted to the joint examination of multiple assets, intending to ascertain their history of edits, by evaluating pairwise relationships. Each relationship, thus, expresses the probability of one asset giving rise to the other, through either global or local operations, such as data compression, resizing, color-space modifications, content blurring, and content splicing. The principled combination of these relationships unveils the provenance of the assets, also constituting an important forensic tool for authenticity verification. This chapter introduces the problem of provenance analysis, discussing its importance and delving into the state-of-the-art techniques to solve it