A Personalized System for Conversational Recommendations

Searching for and making decisions about information is becoming increasingly difficult as the amount of information and number of choices increases. Recommendation systems help users find items of interest of a particular type, such as movies or restaurants, but are still somewhat awkward to use. Our solution is to take advantage of the complementary strengths of personalized recommendation systems and dialogue systems, creating personalized aides. We present a system -- the Adaptive Place Advisor -- that treats item selection as an interactive, conversational process, with the program inquiring about item attributes and the user responding. Individual, long-term user preferences are unobtrusively obtained in the course of normal recommendation dialogues and used to direct future conversations with the same user. We present a novel user model that influences both item search and the questions asked during a conversation. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system in significantly reducing the time and number of interactions required to find a satisfactory item, as compared to a control group of users interacting with a non-adaptive version of the system

SocialSensor: sensing user generated input for improved media discovery and experience

SocialSensor will develop a new framework for enabling real-time multimedia indexing and search in the Social Web. The project moves beyond conventional text-based indexing and retrieval models by mining and aggregating user inputs and content over multiple social networking sites. Social Indexing will incorporate information about the structure and activity of the users‟ social network directly into the multimedia analysis and search process. Furthermore, it will enhance the multimedia consumption experience by developing novel user-centric media visualization and browsing paradigms. For example, SocialSensor will analyse the dynamic and massive user contributions in order to extract unbiased trending topics and events and will use social connections for improved recommendations. To achieve its objectives, SocialSensor introduces the concept of Dynamic Social COntainers (DySCOs), a new layer of online multimedia content organisation with particular emphasis on the real-time, social and contextual nature of content and information consumption. Through the proposed DySCOs-centered media search, SocialSensor will integrate social content mining, search and intelligent presentation in a personalized, context and network-aware way, based on aggregation and indexing of both UGC and multimedia Web content

CBR model for the intelligent management of customer support centers

[EN] In this paper, a new CBR system for Technology Management Centers is presented. The system helps the staff of the centers to solve customer problems by finding solutions successfully applied to similar problems experienced in the past. This improves the satisfaction of customers and ensures a good reputation for the company who manages the center and thus, it may increase its profits. The CBR system is portable, flexible and multi-domain. It is implemented as a module of a help-desk application to make the CBR system as independent as possible of any change in the help-desk. Each phase of the reasoning cycle is implemented as a series of configurable plugins, making the CBR module easy to update and maintain. This system has been introduced and tested in a real Technology Management center ran by the Spanish company TISSAT S.A.Financial support from Spanish government under grant PROFIT FIT-340001-2004-11 is gratefully acknowledgeHeras Barberá, SM.; Garcia Pardo Gimenez De Los Galanes, JA.; Ramos-Garijo Font De Mora, R.; Palomares Chust, A.; Julian Inglada, VJ.; Rebollo Pedruelo, M.; Botti, V. (2006). CBR model for the intelligent management of customer support centers. En Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer Verlag (Germany). 663-670. https://doi.org/10.1007/11875581_80S663670Acorn, T., Walden, S.: SMART: SupportManagement Automated Reasoning Technology for Compaq Customer Service. In: Scott, A., Klahr, P. (eds.) Proceedings of the 2 International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, ITS-92 Berlin, vol. 4, pp. 3–18. AAAI Press, Menlo Park (1992)Simoudis, E.: Using Case-Based Retrieval for Customer Technical Support. IEEE Intelligent Systems 7, 10–12 (1992)Kriegsman, M., Barletta, R.: Building a Case-Based Help Desk Application. IEEE Expert: Intelligent Systems and Their Applications 8, 18–26 (1993)Shimazu, H., Shibata, A., Nihei, K.: Case-Based Retrieval Interface Adapted to Customer-Initiated Dialogues in Help Desk Operations. In: Mylopoulos, J., Reiter, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the 12th National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, vol. 1, pp. 513–518. AAAI Press, Menlo Park (1994)Raman, R., Chang, K.H., Carlisle, W.H., Cross, J.H.: A self-improving helpdesk service system using case-based reasoning techniques. Computers in Industry 2, 113–125 (1996)Kang, B.H., Yoshida, K., Motoda, H., Compton, P.: Help Desk System with Intelligent Interface. Applied Artificial Intelligence 11, 611–631 (1997)Roth-Berghofer, T., Iglezakis, I.: Developing an Integrated Multilevel Help-Desk Support System. In: Proceedings of the 8th German Workshop on Case-Based Reasoning, pp. 145–155 (2000)Goker, M., Roth-Berghofer, T.: The development and utilization of the case-based help-desk support system HOMER. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence 12, 665–680 (1999)Roth-Berghofer, T.R.: Learning from HOMER, a case-based help-desk support system. In: Melnik, G., Holz, H. (eds.) Advances in Learning Software Organizations, pp. 88–97. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Bergmann, R., Althoff, K.D., Breen, S., Göker, M., Manago, M., Traphöner, R., Wess, S.: Developing Industrial Case-Based Reasoning Applications. In: The INRECA Methodology, 2nd edn. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 1612. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)eGain (2006), http://www.egain.comKaidara Software Corporation (2006), http://www.kaidara.com/Empolis Knowledge Management GmbH - Arvato AG (2006), http://www.empolis.com/Althoff, K.D., Auriol, E., Barletta, R., Manago, M.: A Review of Industrial Case-Based Reasoning Tools. AI Perspectives Report. Goodall, A., Oxford (1995)Watson, I.: Applying Case-Based Reasoning. Techniques for Enterprise Systems. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. California (1997)empolis: empolis Orenge Technology Whitepaper. Technical report, empolis GmbH (2002)Tissat, S.A. (2006), http://www.tissat.esGiraud-Carrier, C., Martinez, T.R.: An integrated framework for learning and reasoning. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 3, 147–185 (1995)Corchado, J.M., Borrajo, M.L., Pellicer, M.A., Yanez, J.C.: Neuro-symbolic system for Business Internal Control. In: Perner, P. (ed.) ICDM 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3275, pp. 1–10. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)Aamodt, A., Plaza, E.: Case-based reasoning: foundational issues, methodological variations and system approaches. AI Communications 7(1), 39–59 (1994)Tversky, A.: Features of similarity. Psychological Review 84(4), 327–352 (1997

Afatinib versus erlotinib as second-line treatment of patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the lung: Final analysis of the randomised phase 3 LUX-Lung 8 trial

Background: LUX-Lung 8 was a randomised, controlled, phase 3 study comparing afatinib and erlotinib as second-line treatment of patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lung. We report the final overall survival (OS) and safety analyses of LUX-Lung 8 and investigate the characteristics of patients who achieved long-term benefit (≥12 months’ treatment). Methods: LUX-Lung 8 (NCT01523587) enroled patients between March 2012 and January 2014 in 183 cancer centres located in 23 countries worldwide and this final analysis had a data cut-off of March 2018. Eligible patients had stage IIIB or IV lung SCC and had progressed after at least four cycles of platinum-based chemotherapy. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive afatinib (40 mg per day) or erlotinib (150 mg per day) until disease progression. Endpoints included OS and safety; a post-hoc analysis of patients with long-term benefit (≥12 months on treatment) was also conducted. Findings: 795 eligible patients were randomly assigned (398 to afatinib, 397 to erlotinib). OS was significantly prolonged with afatinib compared with erlotinib (median 7·8 months vs 6·8 months; hazard ratio 0·84; 95% CI 0·73–0·97; p = 0·0193). These findings were consistent with those of the primary analysis and were consistent across subgroups. Adverse events (AEs) were manageable with dose interruption and reduction, with similar AEs being experienced between both groups. Twenty-one (5·3%) patients receiving afatinib and 13 (3·3%) patients receiving erlotinib achieved long-term benefit; median OS was 34·6 months and 20·1 months, respectively. Amongst 132 afatinib-treated patients who underwent tumour genetic analysis, ERBB family mutations were more common in patients with long-term benefit than in the overall population (50% vs 21%). Interpretation: Afatinib is a treatment option for patients with SCC of the lung progressing on chemotherapy who are ineligible for immunotherapy, particularly those with ERBB family genetic aberrations. Afatinib has a predictable and manageable tolerability profile, and long-term treatment may be well tolerated

Abstracts of the 2014 Brains, Minds, and Machines Summer School

A compilation of abstracts from the student projects of the 2014 Brains, Minds, and Machines Summer School, held at Woods Hole Marine Biological Lab, May 29 - June 12, 2014.This work was supported by the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM), funded by NSF STC award CCF-1231216

Molecular changes in articular cartilage and subchondral bone in the rat anterior cruciate ligament transection and meniscectomized models of osteoarthritis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating, progressive joint disease.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Similar to the disease progression in humans, sequential events of early cartilage degradation, subchondral osteopenia followed by sclerosis, and late osteophyte formation were demonstrated in the anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) or ACLT with partial medial meniscectomy (ACLT + MMx) rat OA models. We describe a reliable and consistent method to examine the time dependent changes in the gene expression profiles in articular cartilage and subchondral bone.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Local regulation of matrix degradation markers was demonstrated by a significant increase in mRNA levels of aggrecanase-1 and MMP-13 as early as the first week post-surgery, and expression remained elevated throughout the 10 week study. Immunohistochemistry confirmed MMP-13 expression in differentiated chondrocytes and synovial fibroblasts at week-2 and cells within osteophytes at week-10 in the surgically-modified-joints. Concomitant increases in chondrocyte differentiation markers, Col IIA and Sox 9, and vascular invasion markers, VEGF and CD31, peaked around week-2 to -4, and returned to Sham levels at later time points in both models. Indeed, VEGF-positive cells were found in the deep articular chondrocytes adjacent to subchondral bone. Osteoclastic bone resorption markers, cathepsin K and TRAP, were also elevated at week-2. Confirming bone resorption is an early local event in OA progression, cathepsin K positive osteoclasts were found invading the articular cartilage from the subchondral region at week 2. This was followed by late disease events, including subchondral sclerosis and osteophyte formation, as demonstrated by the upregulation of the osteoanabolic markers runx2 and osterix, toward week-4 to 6 post-surgery.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In summary, this study demonstrated the temporal and cohesive gene expression changes in articular cartilage and subchondral bone using known markers of OA progression. The findings here support genome-wide profiling efforts to elucidate the sequential and complex regulation of the disease.</p

Complete genome sequence of the sulfate-reducing Firmicute Desulfotomaculum ruminis type strain (DLT)

Desulfotomaculum ruminis Campbell and Postgate 1965 is a member of the large genus Desulfotomaculum which contains 30 species and is contained in the family Peptococcaceae. This species is of interest because it represents one of the few sulfate-reducing bacteria that have been isolated from the rumen. Here we describe the features of D. ruminis together with the complete genome sequence and annotation. The 3,969,014 bp long chromosome with a total of 3,901 protein-coding and 85 RNA genes is the second completed genome sequence of a type strain of the genus Desulfotomaculum to be published, and was sequenced as part of the DOE Joint Genome Institute Community Sequencing Program 2009

LRP10 interacts with SORL1 in the intracellular vesicle trafficking pathway in non-neuronal brain cells and localises to Lewy bodies in Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies

Loss-of-function variants in the low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 10 (LRP10) gene have been associated with autosomal-dominant Parkinson's disease (PD), PD dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Moreover, LRP10 variants have been found in individuals diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Despite this genetic evidence, little is known about the expression and function of LRP10 protein in the human brain under physiological or pathological conditions. To better understand how LRP10 variants lead to neurodegeneration, we first performed an in-depth characterisation of LRP10 expression in post-mortem brains and human-induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived astrocytes and neurons from control subjects. In adult human brain, LRP10 is mainly expressed in astrocytes and neurovasculature but undetectable in neurons. Similarly, LRP10 is highly expressed in iPSC-derived astrocytes but cannot be observed in iPSC-derived neurons. In astrocytes, LRP10 is present at trans-Golgi network, plasma membrane, retromer, and early endosomes. Interestingly, LRP10 also partially co-localises and interacts with sortilin-related receptor 1 (SORL1). Furthermore, although LRP10 expression and localisation in the substantia nigra of most idiopathic PD and DLB patients and LRP10 variant carriers diagnosed with PD or DLB appeared unchanged compared to control subjects, significantly enlarged LRP10-positive vesicles were detected in a patient carrying the LRP10 p.Arg235Cys variant. Last, LRP10 was detected in Lewy bodies (LB) at late maturation stages in brains from idiopathic PD and DLB patients and in LRP10 variant carriers. In conclusion, high LRP10 expression in non-neuronal cells and undetectable levels in neurons of control subjects indicate that LRP10-mediated pathogenicity is initiated via cell non-autonomous mechanisms, potentially involving the interaction of LRP10 with SORL1 in vesicle trafficking pathways. Together with the specific pattern of LRP10 incorporation into mature LBs, these data support an important mechanistic role for disturbed vesicle trafficking and loss of LRP10 function in neurodegenerative diseases