146 research outputs found
Subject-Independent Emotion Recognition Based on Physiological Signals: A Three-Stage Decision Method
Background: Collaboration between humans and computers has become pervasive and ubiquitous, however current computer systems are limited in that they fail to address the emotional component. An accurate understanding of human emotions is necessary for these computers to trigger proper feedback. Among multiple emotional channels, physiological signals are synchronous with emotional responses; therefore, analyzing physiological changes is a recognized way to estimate human emotions. In this paper, a three-stage decision method is proposed to recognize four emotions based on physiological signals in the multi-subject context. Emotion detection is achieved by using a stage-divided strategy in which each stage deals with a fine-grained goal.
Methods: The decision method consists of three stages. During the training process, the initial stage transforms mixed training subjects to separate groups, thus eliminating the effect of individual differences. The second stage categorizes four emotions into two emotion pools in order to reduce recognition complexity. The third stage trains a classifier based on emotions in each emotion pool. During the testing process, a test case or test trial will be initially classified to a group followed by classification into an emotion pool in the second stage. An emotion will be assigned to the test trial in the final stage. In this paper we consider two different ways of allocating four emotions into two emotion pools. A comparative analysis is also carried out between the proposal and other methods.
Results: An average recognition accuracy of 77.57% was achieved on the recognition of four emotions with the best accuracy of 86.67% to recognize the positive and excited emotion. Using differing ways of allocating four emotions into two emotion pools, we found there is a difference in the effectiveness of a classifier on learning each emotion. When compared to other methods, the proposed method demonstrates a significant improvement in recognizing four emotions in the multi-subject context.
Conclusions: The proposed three-stage decision method solves a crucial issue which is \u27individual differences\u27 in multi-subject emotion recognition and overcomes the suboptimal performance with respect to direct classification of multiple emotions. Our study supports the observation that the proposed method represents a promising methodology for recognizing multiple emotions in the multi-subject context
DPHANet: Discriminative Parallel and Hierarchical Attention Network for Natural Language Video Localization
Natural Language Video Localization (NLVL) has
recently attracted much attention because of its practical significance.
However, the existing methods still face the following
challenges: 1) When the models learn intra-modal semantic
association, the temporal causal interaction information and contextual
semantic discriminative information are ignored, resulting
in the lack of intra-modal semantic context connection; 2) When
learning fusion representations, existing cross-modal interaction
modules lack hierarchical attention function to extract intermodal
similarity information and intra-modal self-correlation
information, resulting in insufficient cross-modal information
interaction; 3) When the loss function is optimized, the existing
models ignore the correlation of causal inference between the
start and end boundaries, resulting in inaccurate start and end
boundary calibrations. To conquer the above challenges, we
proposed a novel NLVL model, called Discriminative Parallel
and Hierarchical Attention Network (DPHANet). Specifically,
we emphasized the importance of temporal causal interaction
information and contextual semantic discriminative information
and correspondingly proposed a Discriminative Parallel Attention
Encoder (DPAE) module to infer and encode the above critical
information. Besides, to overcome the shortcomings of the existing
cross-modal interaction modules, we designed a Video-Query
Hierarchical Attention (VQHA) module, which can perform
cross-modal interaction and intra-modal self-correlation modeling
in a hierarchical manner. Furthermore, a novel deviation
loss function was proposed to capture the correlation of causal
inference between the start and end boundaries and force the
model to focus on the continuity and temporal causality in
the video. Finally, extensive experiments on three benchmark
datasets demonstrated the superiority of our proposed DPHANet
model, which has achieved about 1.5% and 3.5% average
performance improvement and about 2.5% and 7.5% maximum
performance improvement on the Charades-STA and TACoS
datasets respectively
Integrated Bioinformatics Analysis the Function of RNA Binding Proteins (RBPs) and Their Prognostic Value in Breast Cancer
Background and Purpose: Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death among women. RNA binding proteins (RBPs) play a vital role in the progression of many cancers. Functional investigation of RBPs may contribute to elucidating the mechanisms underlying tumor initiation, progression, and invasion, therefore providing novel insights into future diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.Methods: We downloaded RNA sequencing data from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) by UCSC Xena and identified relevant RBPs through an integrated bioinformatics analysis. We then analyzed biological processes of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) by DAVID, and established their interaction networks and performed pathway analysis through the STRING database to uncover potential biological effects of these RBPs. We also explored the relationship between these RBPs and the prognosis of breast cancer patients.Results: In the present study, we obtained 1092 breast tumor samples and 113 normal controls. After data analysis, we identified 90 upregulated and 115 downregulated RBPs in breast cancer. GO and KEGG pathway analysis indicated that these significantly changed genes were mainly involved in RNA processing, splicing, localization and RNA silencing, DNA transposition regulation and methylation, alkylation, mitochondrial gene expression, and transcription regulation. In addition, some RBPs were related to histone H3K27 methylation, estrogen response, inflammatory mediators, and translation regulation. Our study also identified five RBPs associated with breast cancer prognosis. Survival analysis found that overexpression of DCAF13, EZR, and MRPL13 showed worse survival, but overexpression of APOBEC3C and EIF4E3 showed better survival.Conclusion: In conclusion, we identified key RBPs of breast cancer through comprehensive bioinformatics analysis. These RBPs were involved in a variety of biological and molecular pathways in breast cancer. Furthermore, we identified five RBPs as a potential prognostic biomarker of breast cancer. Our study provided novel insights to understand breast cancer at a molecular level
Manipulating Multiple Order Parameters via Oxygen Vacancies: The case of Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3-{\delta}
Controlling functionalities, such as magnetism or ferroelectricity, by means
of oxygen vacancies (VO) is a key issue for the future development of
transition metal oxides. Progress in this field is currently addressed through
VO variations and their impact on mainly one order parameter. Here we reveal a
new mechanism for tuning both magnetism and ferroelectricity simultaneously by
using VO. Combined experimental and density-functional theory studies of
Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3-{\delta}, we demonstrate that oxygen vacancies create Ti3+ 3d1
defect states, mediating the ferromagnetic coupling between the localized Eu
4f7 spins, and increase an off-center displacement of Ti ions, enhancing the
ferroelectric Curie temperature. The dual function of Ti sites also promises a
magnetoelectric coupling in the Eu0.5Ba0.5TiO3-{\delta}.Comment: Accepted by Physical Review B, 201
The role of anti-aquaporin 4 antibody in the conversion of acute brainstem syndrome to neuromyelitis optica
Background: Acute brainstem syndrome (ABS) may herald multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica (NMO), or occur as an isolated syndrome. The aquaporin 4 (AQP4)-specific serum autoantibody, NMO-IgG, is a biomarker for NMO. However, the role of anti-AQP4 antibody in the conversion of ABS to NMO is unclear.Methods: Thirty-one patients with first-event ABS were divided into two groups according to the presence of anti-AQP4 antibodies, their clinical features and outcomes were retrospectively analyzed.Results: Fourteen of 31 patients (45.16 %) were seropositive for NMO-IgG. The 71.43 % of anti-AQP4 (+) ABS patients converted to NMO, while only 11.76 % of anti-AQP4 (-) ABS patients progressed to NMO. Anti-AQP4 (+) ABS patients demonstrated a higher IgG index (0.68 ± 0.43 vs 0.42 ± 0.13, p
Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Dephosphorylation of AMPK-Activated Protein Kinase Potentiates Inflammatory Injury via Repression of ULK1-Dependent Autophagy
AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a crucial metabolic regulator with profound modulatory activities on inflammation. Although the anti-inflammatory benefits of AMPK activators were well documented in experimental studies, the pathological significance of endogenous AMPK in inflammatory disorders largely remains unknown. This study investigated the phosphorylation status of endogenous AMPK and the potential roles of AMPK in mice with lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced lethal inflammation. The results indicated that LPS dose-dependently decreased the phosphorylation level of AMPK and its target protein acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC). Reactivation of AMPK with the AMPK activator A-769662 suppressed LPS-induced elevation of interleukin 6, alleviated histological abnormalities in lung and improved the survival of LPS-challenged mice. Treatment with A-769662 restored LPS-induced suppression of autophagy, inhibition of autophagy by 3-MA reversed the beneficial effects of A-769662. Treatment with A-769662 suppressed LPS-induced activation of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), co-administration of mTOR activator abolished the beneficial effects of A-769662, and the suppressive effects of A-769662 on uncoordinated-51-like kinase 1 (ULK1) phosphorylation. Inhibition of ULK1 removed the beneficial effects of A-769662. These data indicated that LPS-induced dephosphorylation of AMPK could result in weakened inhibition of mTOR and repression of ULK1-dependent autophagy, which might potentiate the development of LPS-induced inflammatory injury. These data suggest that pharmacological restoration of AMPK activation might be a beneficial approach for the intervention of inflammatory disorders
The role of anti-aquaporin 4 antibody in the conversion of acute brainstem syndrome to neuromyelitis optica
Background: Acute brainstem syndrome (ABS) may herald multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica (NMO), or occur as an isolated syndrome. The aquaporin 4 (AQP4)-specific serum autoantibody, NMO-IgG, is a biomarker for NMO. However, the role of anti-AQP4 antibody in the conversion of ABS to NMO is unclear.
Methods: Thirty-one patients with first-event ABS were divided into two groups according to the presence of anti-AQP4 antibodies, their clinical features and outcomes were retrospectively analyzed.
Results: Fourteen of 31 patients (45.16 %) were seropositive for NMO-IgG. The 71.43 % of anti-AQP4 (+) ABS patients converted to NMO, while only 11.76 % of anti-AQP4 (-) ABS patients progressed to NMO. Anti-AQP4 (+) ABS patients demonstrated a higher IgG index (0.68 ± 0.43 vs 0.42 ± 0.13, p < 0.01) and Kurtzke Expanded Disability Status Scale (4.64 ± 0.93 vs 2.56 ± 0.81, p < 0.01) than anti-AQP4 (-) ABS patients. Area postrema clinical brainstem symptoms occurred more frequently in anti-AQP4 (+) ABS patients than those in anti-AQP4 (-) ABS patients (71.43 % vs 17.65 %, p = 0.004). In examination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the 78.57 % of anti-AQP4 (+) ABS patients had medulla-predominant involvements in the sagittal view and dorsal-predominant involvements in the axial view.
Conclusions: ABS represents an inaugural or limited form of NMO in a high proportion of anti-AQP4 (+) patients
Emergence of Hypervirulent Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Coharboring a blaNDM-1-Carrying Virulent Plasmid and a blaKPC-2-Carrying Plasmid in an Egyptian Hospital
The emergence of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) isolates in Egyptian hospitals has been reported. However, the genetic basis and analysis of the plasmids associated with carbapenem-resistant hypervirulent K. pneumoniae (CR-HvKP) in Egypt have not been presented. Therefore, we attempted to decipher the plasmid sequences that are responsible for transferring the determinants of carbapenem resistance, particularly blaNDM-1 and blaKPC-2. Out of 34 K. pneumoniae isolates collected from two tertiary hospitals in Egypt, 31 were CRKP. Whole-genome sequencing revealed that our isolates were related to 13 different sequence types (STs). The most prevalent ST was ST101, followed by ST383 and ST11. Among the CRKP isolates, one isolate named EBSI036 has been reassessed by Nanopore sequencing. Genetic environment analysis showed that EBSI036 carried 20 antibiotic resistance genes and was identified as a CR-HvKP strain: it harbored four plasmids, namely, pEBSI036-1-NDM-VIR, pEBSI036-2-KPC, pEBSI036-3, and pEBSI036-4. The two carbapenemase genes blaNDM-1 and blaKPC-2 were located on plasmids pEBSI036-1-NDM-VIR and pEBSI036-2-KPC, respectively. The IncFIB:IncHI1B hybrid plasmid pEBSI036-1-NDM-VIR also carried some virulence factors, including the regulator of the mucoid phenotype (rmpA), the regulator of mucoid phenotype 2 (rmpA2), and aerobactin (iucABCD and iutA). Thus, we set out in this study to analyze in depth the genetic basis of the pEBSI036-1-NDM-VIR and pEBSI036-2-KPC plasmids. We report a high-risk clone ST11 KL47 serotype of a CR-HvKP strain isolated from the blood of a 60-year-old hospitalized female patient from the intensive care unit (ICU) in a tertiary care hospital in Egypt, which showed the cohabitation of a novel hybrid plasmid coharboring the blaNDM-1 and virulence genes and a blaKPC-2-carrying plasmid
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