Image-based Text Classification using 2D Convolutional Neural Networks

We propose a new approach to text classification in which we consider the input text as an image and apply 2D Convolutional Neural Networks to learn the local and global semantics of the sentences from the variations of the visual patterns of words. Our approach demonstrates that it is possible to get semantically meaningful features from images with text without using optical character recognition and sequential processing pipelines, techniques that traditional natural language processing algorithms require. To validate our approach, we present results for two applications: text classification and dialog modeling. Using a 2D Convolutional Neural Network, we were able to outperform the state-ofart accuracy results for a Chinese text classification task and achieved promising results for seven English text classification tasks. Furthermore, our approach outperformed the memory networks without match types when using out of vocabulary entities from Task 4 of the bAbI dialog dataset

Hydrogel Microparticles as Sensors for Specific Adhesion: Case Studies on Antibody Detection and Soil Release Polymers

Adhesive processes in aqueous media play a crucial role in nature and are important for many technological processes. However, direct quantification of adhesion still requires expensive instrumentation while their sample throughput is rather small. Here we present a fast, and easily applicable method on quantifying adhesion energy in water based on interferometric measurement of polymer microgel contact areas with functionalized glass slides and evaluation via the Johnson–Kendall–Roberts (JKR) model. The advantage of the method is that the microgel matrix can be easily adapted to reconstruct various biological or technological adhesion processes. Here we study the suitability of the new adhesion method with two relevant examples: (1) antibody detection and (2) soil release polymers. The measurement of adhesion energy provides direct insights on the presence of antibodies showing that the method can be generally used for biomolecule detection. As a relevant example of adhesion in technology, the antiadhesive properties of soil release polymers used in today’s laundry products are investigated. Here the measurement of adhesion energy provides direct insights into the relation between polymer composition and soil release activity. Overall, the work shows that polymer hydrogel particles can be used as versatile adhesion sensors to investigate a broad range of adhesion processes in aqueous media

Smart environments and context-awareness for lifestyle management in a healthy active ageing framework

Health trends of elderly in Europe motivate the need for technological solutions aimed at preventing the main causes of morbidity and premature mortality. In this framework, the DOREMI project addresses three important causes of morbidity and mortality in the elderly by devising an ICT-based home care services for aging people to contrast cognitive decline, sedentariness and unhealthy dietary habits. In this paper, we present the general architecture of DOREMI, focusing on its aspects of human activity recognition and reasoning

Description of an aerodynamic levitation apparatus with applications in Earth sciences

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In aerodynamic levitation, solids and liquids are floated in a vertical gas stream. In combination with CO₂-laser heating, containerless melting at high temperature of oxides and silicates is possible. We apply aerodynamic levitation to bulk rocks in preparation for microchemical analyses, and for evaporation and reduction experiments.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Liquid silicate droplets (~2 mm) were maintained stable in levitation using a nozzle with a 0.8 mm bore and an opening angle of 60°. The gas flow was ~250 ml min^-1. Rock powders were melted and homogenized for microchemcial analyses. Laser melting produced chemically homogeneous glass spheres. Only highly (e.g. H₂O) and moderately volatile components (Na, K) were partially lost. The composition of evaporated materials was determined by directly combining levitation and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. It is shown that the evaporated material is composed of Na > K >> Si. Levitation of metal oxide-rich material in a mixture of H₂and Ar resulted in the exsolution of liquid metal.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Levitation melting is a rapid technique or for the preparation of bulk rock powders for major, minor and trace element analysis. With exception of moderately volatile elements Na and K, bulk rock analyses can be performed with an uncertainty of ± 5% relative. The technique has great potential for the quantitative determination of evaporated materials from silicate melts. Reduction of oxides to metal is a means for the extraction and analysis of siderophile elements from silicates and can be used to better understand the origin of chondritic metal.</p

Leishmania HASP and SHERP Genes are Required for In Vivo Differentiation, Parasite Transmission and Virulence Attenuation in the Host

Differentiation of extracellular Leishmania promastigotes within their sand fly vector, termed metacyclogenesis, is considered to be essential for parasites to regain mammalian host infectivity. Metacyclogenesis is accompanied by changes in the local parasite environment, including secretion of complex glycoconjugates within the promastigote secretory gel and colonization and degradation of the sand fly stomodeal valve. Deletion of the stage-regulated HASP and SHERP genes on chromosome 23 of Leishmania major is known to stall metacyclogenesis in the sand fly but not in in vitro culture. Here, parasite mutants deficient in specific genes within the HASP/SHERP chromosomal region have been used to investigate their role in metacyclogenesis, parasite transmission and establishment of infection. Metacyclogenesis was stalled in HASP/SHERP mutants in vivo and, although still capable of osmotaxis, these mutants failed to secrete promastigote secretory gel, correlating with a lack of parasite accumulation in the thoracic midgut and failure to colonise the stomodeal valve. These defects prevented parasite transmission to a new mammalian host. Sand fly midgut homogenates modulated parasite behaviour in vitro, suggesting a role for molecular interactions between parasite and vector in Leishmania development within the sand fly. For the first time, stage-regulated expression of the small HASPA proteins in Leishmania (Leishmania) has been demonstrated: HASPA2 is expressed only in extracellular promastigotes and HASPA1 only in intracellular amastigotes. Despite its lack of expression in amastigotes, replacement of HASPA2 into the null locus background delays onset of pathology in BALB/c mice. This HASPA2-dependent effect is reversed by HASPA1 gene addition, suggesting that the HASPAs may have a role in host immunomodulation

Multiscale blood flow modelling and simulation

Zsfassung in dt. SpracheSimulation des arteriellen Blutkreislaufs hat eine lange Tradition. Während des letzten Jahrhunderts wurde eine Vielzahl von Modellen zur Simulation des Blutflusses und der Pulswellenausbreitung in den Gefäßen entwickelt. Seit dem ersten Kompartment Modell von Stephen Hales aus dem Jahr 1733 entstanden die verschiedensten Modelle, die Teile des arteriellen Systemkreislaufs abbildeten, bis hin zu ganzheitlichen Modellen für den gesamten Blutkreislauf und 3-dimensionalen Strömungsmodellen der Arterien. So verschieden die Modelle sind, so sind es auch die Lösungsmethoden. All diese verschiedenen Ansätze haben ihre Vor- und Nachteile, abhängig vom verfolgten Ziel der Simulation. Die einfachsten Modelle haben zu wenig Aussagekraft da sie zu wenige physiologische Phänomene abbilden, zu komplexe Modelle sind aufgrund der großen Anzahl an unbekannten Parametern nicht identifizierbar.Diese Arbeit versucht einen optimalen Mittelweg zu finden um ein globales dynamisches geregeltes und identifizierbares Modell für den menschlichen Herzkreislauf zu entwickeln und die Gültigkeit des Modells anhand von Messdaten zu verifizieren. Um das zu bewerkstelligen wurden verschiedene Modellansätze untersucht und miteinander gekoppelt.Im Speziellen wird in dieser Arbeit ein 1-dimensionalen Strömungsmodells auf Basis der Navier-Stokes Gleichungen mit einem 6-Kompartmentmodell für den Regelkreislauf gekoppelt. Die beiden Modelle arbeiten auf verschiedenen Zeitskalen die synchronisiert werden müssen. Während das Kompartmentmodell mittels einfacher Quadratur gelöst werden kann sind zur Lösung der partiellen Navier-Stokes Differentialgleichungen komplexere Methoden erforderlich, wobei hier ein Finite Volumen Verfahren verwendet wurde.Der Hauptteil der Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Identifizierung des gekoppelten multiskalen Modells auf Grund von Messdaten. Dazu wurden eine Reihe von so genannten Ersatzmodellen untersucht um von der beschränkten Anzahl an verfügbaren Daten auf die fehlenden Daten rückzurechnen. Prinzipell sind aus den Messdaten zweierlei Parameter zu bestimmen; zum einen muss die Struktur des Arteriennetzwerks angepasst werden, zum anderen die Parameter der Randbedingungen die durch die verwendeten Methoden auftreten, bestimmt werden. Viele dieser Parameter sind nicht direkt messbar und müssen indirekt durch andere Modelle bestimmt werden. Da die Randbedingungen von den zu berechnenden Größen abhängen müssen diese in jedem Zeitschritt neu bestimmt werden.Im Speziellen werden Modelle zur Elasitizitätsbestimmung und zur Bestimmung der Windkesseldaten an den Endsegmenten des modellierten Arteriennetzwerkes diskutiert.Im Rahmen der Dissertation konnte auch eine Studie mit freiwilligen Probanden durchgeführt werden wobei kardiovaskuläre Parameter erhoben wurden. Diese Daten dienen dann am Ende dieser Arbeit zum einen als Grundlage der Identifizierung des dynamischen geregelten Kreislaufmodells und zum anderen zur Verifizierung der errechneten Daten wie Pulsdruckkurve oder Flußgeschwindigkeiten.Modelling and simulation of the cardiovascular system have a long tradition and a huge amout of different approaches were discussed.From very simply lumped parameter models without consideration of control mechanism to very complex 3-dimensional models for the blood flow in systemic arteries the reader can find a lot of scientific works in the literature. All this models have its advantages as well as its disadvantages, depending on the aim of the simulation. The simple models may not map the physiological properties properly and the complex models are too hard to handle or they consider only a small part of the whole cardiovascular circle.This work tries to find the happy medium and a dynamic controlled and identifiable multiscale model for the whole cardiovascular cycle is developed. The validity of the model is verified by measured data. Doing this, several different types of models have been chosen to be connected to the final overall model. In detail this work covers the implementation of an 1-dimensional dynamic model for the big systemic arteries based on the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and its connection with a lumped parameter model. Additionally a model for the small arteries is used for determination of boundary values for the termination segments of the modelled vascular bed. Within the compartment model two physiological control mechanisms are considered. While the solution of the controlled compartment model is straight forward by quadrature, solving the dynamic Navier-Stokes model is more sophisticated. Here we used a finite volume method.A fundamental part of this work deals with the identification of the coupled dynamic multiscale model based on measured data. To do this, several so-called alternative models are tested to be able to compute as much as possible unknown parameters from a usually quite fragmentary set of data. Basically, two classes of parameters have to be computed. One the one hand the geometrical and physical structure of the vascular bed (i.e. vessel diameters, lengths and elasticity), on the other hand by reason of the used computational methods terminal conditions have to be fulfilled. For instance, we use Windkessel models on termination segments of the arterial tree whose parameters have to be known.From ultrasound measurement we are able to achieve physical data of the vascular bed of several positions. By help of other datasets from literature the missing data between are interpolated. Due the usage of an additional electrocardiogram (ECG) the pulse wave velocity can be measured as well what is used for determining the vessel wall elasticity.The Windkessel data are computed through a linearised model for the cardiovascular tree each time step in the scale of the compartment model. Doing this, a model for the small arteries based on the linearised Navier-Stokes equations is used.12

Human Annotated Dialogues Dataset for Natural Conversational Agents

International audienceConversational agents are gaining huge popularity in industrial applications such as digital assistants, chatbots, and particularly systems for natural language understanding (NLU). However, a major drawback is the unavailability of a common metric to evaluate the replies against human judgement for conversational agents. In this paper, we develop a benchmark dataset with human annotations and diverse replies that can be used to develop such metric for conversational agents. The paper introduces a high-quality human annotated movie dialogue dataset, HUMOD, that is developed from the Cornell movie dialogues dataset. This new dataset comprises 28,500 human responses from 9500 multi-turn dialogue history-reply pairs. Human responses include: (i) ratings of the dialogue reply in relevance to the dialogue history; and (ii) unique dialogue replies for each dialogue history from the users. Such unique dialogue replies enable researchers in evaluating their models against six unique human responses for each given history. Detailed analysis on how dialogues are structured and human perception on dialogue score in comparison with existing models are also presented