Self-adaptive GA, quantitative semantic similarity measures and ontology-based text clustering

As the common clustering algorithms use vector space model (VSM) to represent document, the conceptual relationships between related terms which do not co-occur literally are ignored. A genetic algorithm-based clustering technique, named GA clustering, in conjunction with ontology is proposed in this article to overcome this problem. In general, the ontology measures can be partitioned into two categories: thesaurus-based methods and corpus-based methods. We take advantage of the hierarchical structure and the broad coverage taxonomy of Wordnet as the thesaurus-based ontology. However, the corpus-based method is rather complicated to handle in practical application. We propose a transformed latent semantic analysis (LSA) model as the corpus-based method in this paper. Moreover, two hybrid strategies, the combinations of the various similarity measures, are implemented in the clustering experiments. The results show that our GA clustering algorithm, in conjunction with the thesaurus-based and the LSA-based method, apparently outperforms that with other similarity measures. Moreover, the superiority of the GA clustering algorithm proposed over the commonly used k-means algorithm and the standard GA is demonstrated by the improvements of the clustering performance

Exploiting Quorum Sensing Interfering Strategies in Gram-Negative Bacteria for the Enhancement of Environmental Applications

Quorum sensing (QS) is a widespread intercellular form of communication to coordinate physiological processes and cooperative activities of bacteria at the population level, and it depends on the production, secretion, and detection of small diffusible autoinducers, such as acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs), auto-inducing oligo-peptides (AIPs) and autoinducer 2. In this review, the function of QS autoinducers of gram-negative bacteria in different aspects of wastewater treatment systems is examined. Based on research primarily performed over the past ten years, QS involvement in the formation of biofilm and aerobic granules and changes of the microbial community and degradation/transformation pathways is discussed. In particular, the QS pathway in the role of bacterial infections and disease prevention in aquaculture is addressed. Interference of QS autoinducer-regulated pathways is considered potential treatment for a variety of environmentally related problems. This review is expected to serve as a stepping stone for further study and development strategies based on the mediation of QS-regulated pathways to enhance applications in both wastewater treatment systems and aquaculture

Indole contributes to tetracycline resistance via the outer membrane protein OmpN in Vibrio splendidus

As an interspecies and interkingdom signaling molecule, indole has recently received attention for its diverse effects on the physiology of both bacteria and hosts. In this study, indole increased the tetracycline resistance of Vibrio splendidus. The minimal inhibitory concentration of tetracycline was 10 mu g/mL, and the OD600 of V. splendidus decreased by 94.5% in the presence of 20 mu g/mL tetracycline; however, the OD600 of V. splendidus with a mixture of 20 mu g/mL tetracycline and 125 mu M indole was 10- or 4.5-fold higher than that with only 20 mu g/mL tetracycline at different time points. The percentage of cells resistant to 10 mu g/mL tetracycline was 600-fold higher in the culture with an OD600 of approximately 2.0 (higher level of indole) than that in the culture with an OD600 of 0.5, which also meant that the level of indole was correlated to the tetracycline resistance of V. splendidus. Furthermore, one differentially expressed protein, which was identified as the outer membrane porin OmpN using SDS-PAGE combined with MALDI-TOF/TOF MS, was upregulated. Consequently, the expression of the ompN gene in the presence of either tetracycline or indole and simultaneously in the presence of indole and tetracycline was upregulated by 1.8-, 2.54-, and 6.01-fold, respectively, compared to the control samples. The combined results demonstrated that indole enhanced the tetracycline resistance of V. splendidus, and this resistance was probably due to upregulation of the outer membrane porin OmpN

Improving Variational Autoencoder for Text Modelling with Timestep-Wise Regularisation

Accepted by COLING 2020, final camera ready versionPreprin

Unscented Particle Filtering Algorithm for Optical-fiber Sensing Intrusion Localization Based on Particle Swarm Optimization

To improve the convergence and precision of intrusion localization in optical-fiber sensing perimeter protection applications, we present an algorithm based on an unscented particle filter (UPF). The algorithm employs particle swarm optimization (PSO) to mitigate the sample degeneracy and impoverishment problem of the particle filter. By comparing the present fitness value of particles with the optimum fitness value of the objective function, PSO moves particles with insignificant UPF weights towards the higher likelihood region and determines the optimal positions for particles with larger weights. The particles with larger weights results in a new sample set with a more balanced distribution between the priors and the likelihood. Simulations demonstrate that the algorithm speeds up convergence and improves the precision of intrusion localization

cDNA cloning and mRNA expression of heat shock protein 70 gene in blood clam Tegillarca granosa against heavy metals challenge

In this study, the full-length heat shock protein 70 of Tegillarca granosa was cloned from cDNA library by rapid amplification of cDNA end (RACE). The open reading frame (ORF) of heat shock protein 70 was 1968 bp, and it encoded a protein of 655 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 71.48 kDa and an isoelectric point of 5.25. Basic local alignment search tool (BLAST) analysis showed that the heat shock protein 70 of T. granosa shared high similarity with other species, supporting that it is a new member of heat shock protein family. Western blot analysis revealed that the generated polyclonal antibodies could specially detect native protein from whole cell lysate of T. granosa. The spatial distribution confirmed that the heat shock protein 70 was abundant in visceral mass, gill and haemocytes, and weakly in foot, mantle and adductor. Heavy metal pollutes such as lead (Pb2+), cadmium (Cd2+) and copper (Cu2+) could induce the gene expression in similar manners by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The present results indicate that heat shock protein 70 of T. granosa may be involved in environmental pollution challenges and should be considered as one of T. granosa promising molecular marker candidates.Keywords: Tegillarca granosa, heat shock protein 70, heavy metals, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(18), pp. 2341-235

Statistical NLG for Generating the Content and Form of Referring Expressions

Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments.Publisher PD

A Dual-Attention Hierarchical Recurrent Neural Network for Dialogue Act Classification

Acknowledgment This work is supported by the award made by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant number: EP/P011829/1).PreprintPublisher PD