MTSS: Learn from Multiple Domain Teachers and Become a Multi-domain Dialogue Expert

How to build a high-quality multi-domain dialogue system is a challenging work due to its complicated and entangled dialogue state space among each domain, which seriously limits the quality of dialogue policy, and further affects the generated response. In this paper, we propose a novel method to acquire a satisfying policy and subtly circumvent the knotty dialogue state representation problem in the multi-domain setting. Inspired by real school teaching scenarios, our method is composed of multiple domain-specific teachers and a universal student. Each individual teacher only focuses on one specific domain and learns its corresponding domain knowledge and dialogue policy based on a precisely extracted single domain dialogue state representation. Then, these domain-specific teachers impart their domain knowledge and policies to a universal student model and collectively make this student model a multi-domain dialogue expert. Experiment results show that our method reaches competitive results with SOTAs in both multi-domain and single domain setting.Comment: AAAI 2020, Spotlight Pape

Novel Sb−SnO2 Electrode with Ti3+ Self-Doped Urchin-Like Rutile TiO2 Nanoclusters as the Interlayer for the Effective Degradation of Dye Pollutants

Stable and efficient SnO2 electrodes are very promising for effectively degrading refractory organic pollutants in wastewater treatment. In this regard, we firstly prepared Ti3+ self-doped urchin-like rutile TiO2 nanoclusters (TiO2-xNCs) on a Ti mesh substrate by hydrothermal and electroreduction to serve as an interlayer for the deposition of Sb−SnO2. The TiO2-xNCs/Sb−SnO2 anode exhibited a high oxygen evolution potential (2.63 V vs. SCE) and strong ⋅OH generation ability for the enhanced amount of absorbed oxygen species. Thus, the degradation results demonstrated its good rhodamine B (RhB), methylene blue (MB), alizarin yellow R (AYR), and methyl orange (MO) removal performance, with the rate constant increased 5.0, 1.9, 1.9, and 4.7 times, respectively, compared to the control Sb−SnO2 electrode. RhB and AYR degradation mechanisms are also proposed based on the results of high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry and quenching experiments. More importantly, this unique rutile interlayer prolonged the anode lifetime sixfold, given its good lattice match with SnO2 and the three-dimensional concave–convex structure. Consequently, this work paves a new way for designing the crystal form and structure of the interlayers to obtain efficient and stable SnO2 electrodes for addressing dye wastewater problems

Ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature predicts prognosis and immunotherapy efficacy in cutaneous melanoma

PurposeFerroptosis-related lncRNAs are promising biomarkers for predicting the prognosis of many cancers. However, a ferroptosis-related signature to predict the prognosis of cutaneous melanoma (CM) has not been identified. The purpose of this study was to construct a ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature to predict prognosis and immunotherapy efficacy in CM.MethodsFerroptosis-related differentially expressed genes (FDEGs) and lncRNAs (FDELs) were identified using TCGA, GTEx, and FerrDb datasets. We performed Cox and LASSO regressions to identify key FDELs, and constructed a risk score to stratify patients into high- and low-risk groups. The lncRNA signature was evaluated using the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) and Kaplan-Meier analyses in the training, testing, and entire cohorts. Multivariate Cox regression analyses including the lncRNA signature and common clinicopathological characteristics were performed to identify independent predictors of overall survival (OS). A nomogram was developed for clinical use. We performed gene set enrichment analyses (GSEA) to identify significantly enriched pathways. Differences in the tumor microenvironment (TME) between the 2 groups were assessed using 7 algorithms. To predict the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), we analyzed the association between PD1 and CTLA4 expression and the risk score. Finally, differences in Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB) and molecular drugs Sensitivity between the 2 groups were performed.ResultsWe identified 5 lncRNAs (AATBC, AC145423.2, LINC01871, AC125807.2, and AC245041.1) to construct the risk score. The AUC of the lncRNA signature was 0.743 in the training cohort and was validated in the testing and entire cohorts. Kaplan-Meier analyses revealed that the high-risk group had poorer prognosis. Multivariate Cox regression showed that the lncRNA signature was an independent predictor of OS with higher accuracy than traditional clinicopathological features. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival probabilities for CM patients were 92.7%, 57.2%, and 40.2% with an AUC of 0.804, indicating a good accuracy and reliability of the nomogram. GSEA showed that the high-risk group had lower ferroptosis and immune response. TME analyses confirmed that the high-risk group had lower immune cell infiltration (e.g., CD8+ T cells, CD4+ memory-activated T cells, and M1 macrophages) and lower immune functions (e.g., immune checkpoint activation). Low-risk patients whose disease expressed PD1 or CTLA4 were likely to respond better to ICIs. The analysis demonstrated that the TMB had significantly difference between low- and high- risk groups. Chemotherapy drugs, such as sorafenib, Imatinib, ABT.888 (Veliparib), Docetaxel, and Paclitaxel showed Significant differences in the estimated IC50 between the two risk groups.ConclusionOur novel ferroptosis-related lncRNA signature was able to accurately predict the prognosis and ICI outcomes of CM patients. These ferroptosis-related lncRNAs might be potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets for CM

Monitoring House Vacancy Dynamics in The Pearl River Delta Region: A Method Based on NPP-VIIRS Night-Time Light Remote Sensing Images

Urban spatial interaction integrates cities into closely related urban network systems in continuous urban regions. However, it also brings differentiation and has mutual negative impacts between each location. Unbalanced development is one such impacts and needs closely monitoring. The housing vacancy rate (HVR) in a continuous urban region is an important index in the unbalanced development of a continuous urban region since it indicates the uneven distribution of population and investment across cities. This study uses NPP-VIIRS NTL data and Landsat 8 OLT images to estimate HVRs at the district level. Additionally, this study tracks the spatial–temporal dynamics of HVR distributions in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. The comparison between the sampled HVRs and estimated HVRs verifies the effectiveness of the estimated HVRs in identifying dynamic changes in HVRs. This study has found that although overall decreasing HVRs are observed in the PRD, speculations and irrational real estate investment exist in cities on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary and in some isolated districts in other cities. Furthermore, increasing proportions of vacant pixels in most cities indicate rising real estate development, requiring further supervision. This study suggests that more precise data and advanced techniques could help to improve the accuracy of the estimation techniques

Effects of Air Plasma Modification on Aramid Fiber Surface and Its Composite Interface and Mechanical Properties

In order to improve the interface and mechanical properties of aramid fiber (AF)-reinforced epoxy resin (EP) composites (AF/EPs), the surface modification of AF was carried out with atmospheric pressure air plasma, and the effects of plasma treatment time and discharge power on the AF surface and the interface and mechanical properties of AF/EPs were investigated. The results show that, when plasma treatment time was 10 min and discharge power was 400 W, AF showed the best modification effect. Compared to the unmodified material, the total content of active groups on the surface of AF increased by 82.4%; the contact angle between AF and EP decreased by 20%; the interfacial energy and work of adhesion increased by 77.1% and 19.1%, respectively; the loss of AF monofilament tensile strength was controlled at only 8.6%; and the interlaminar shear strength and tensile strength of AF/EPs increased by 45.5% and 10.4%, respectively. The improvement in AF/EP interfacial and mechanical properties is due to the introduction of more active groups on the AF surface with suitable plasma processing parameters, which strengthens the chemical bonding between the AF and EP matrix. At the same time, plasma treatment effectively increases the surface roughness of AF, and the mechanical meshing effect between the AF and EP matrix is improved. The synergistic effect of chemical bonding and mechanical meshing improves the wettability and interfacial bonding strength between the AF and EP matrix, which enables the load to be transferred from the resin to the fiber more efficiently, thereby improving the mechanical properties of the AF/EP

Summer soil moisture regulated by precipitation frequency in China

International audienc

A scalable polymer-free method for transferring graphene onto arbitrary surfaces

An efficient and reliable transfer for graphene onto the substrates of interests acts as the crucial bridge between the graphene synthesis and applications. The main reason that this issue has not been fully addressed is the use of a polymer medium to protect the one-atom-thick material during the transfer process. Here we demonstrate a general and scalable method to transfer chemical-vapor-deposited graphene onto arbitrary surfaces without any polymers, which yields the transfer of macroscopically and microscopically clean, continuous and uniform graphene samples onto a wide variety of substrates, as well as the scalable layer-by-layer graphene epitaxial structures. Moreover, the transferred graphene exhibits an overall 100% enhancement in the electrical conductivity compared with the conventional method, so that various high-performance flexible transparent electrodes can be demonstrated. We believe that this new transfer technique will offer the opportunities to the industrialization of next generations of flexible electronics and other graphene-based disruptive technologies. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved