Ridge Regression, Hubness, and Zero-Shot Learning

This paper discusses the effect of hubness in zero-shot learning, when ridge regression is used to find a mapping between the example space to the label space. Contrary to the existing approach, which attempts to find a mapping from the example space to the label space, we show that mapping labels into the example space is desirable to suppress the emergence of hubs in the subsequent nearest neighbor search step. Assuming a simple data model, we prove that the proposed approach indeed reduces hubness. This was verified empirically on the tasks of bilingual lexicon extraction and image labeling: hubness was reduced with both of these tasks and the accuracy was improved accordingly.Comment: To be presented at ECML/PKDD 201

腎細胞癌の膵転移の1例

A case of asynchronous bilateral renal cell carcinoma with pancreatic metastasis is described. Left nephrectomy and tumorectomy in the right kidney were performed. Solitary metastasis to the pancreas without symptoms was treated by distal pancreatectomy with tumor and splenectomy. Although bilateral renal cell carcinomas were histologically renal cell carcinoma (clear cell subtype, grade 2), the resected pancreatic tumor was renal cell carcinoma with sarcomatoid change. Therefore, the metastatic tumor had a more malignant potential than the primary tumor. The pancreatic metastasis was seen at 6 years 10 months and 2 years 6 months after left nephrectomy and enucleation of the right renal tumors, respectively. The patient is alive without disease and is being treated by alpha-interferon for 12 months after distal pancreatectomy. A careful long-term follow-up of the patient with renal cell carcinoma seems to be necessary

Preliminary analyses on the climatological features of precipitation characteristics and large-scale atmospheric fields on the heavy rainfall days in the eastern part of Japan during the mature stage of the Baiu season

Rainfall characteristics and large-scale atmospheric fields on the “heavy rainfall days” (with more than 50 mm/day) in the mature stage of the Baiu season (16 June ~ 15 July) at Tokyo in the eastern part of the Japan Islands were examined, based on the daily and the hourly precipitation data from 1971 to 2010. Appearance frequency of the “heavy rainfall days” at Tokyo attained only about 1/3 of that at Nagasaki in the western Japan. Furthermore, it is noted that about half of the “heavy rainfall days” at Tokyo were related to the typhoon. In detail, about half of the typhoon cases were associated with the direct approach of a typhoon (referred to as Pattern A, hereafter), the other half corresponded to the situation when the Baiu front also stagnated around Kanto District with a typhoon to the southwest of Kanto (Pattern B). Although the contribution of the intense rainfall with more than 10 mm/h to the total precipitation was large in Pattern A, that with less than 10 mm/h was dominant in Patterns B and C (Pattern C: meso-α-scale cyclone on the Baiu front approaching to the Kanto District). It is noted that about half of the “heavy rainfall days” corresponded to these pattern. In other words, unlike the localized torrential rain in western Japan, the “heavy rainfall days” due to the duration of “not-so-intense-rain” appeared rather frequently in the eastern part of Japan even in the Baiu season. In both Patterns B and C, relatively strong low-level southerly wind associated with the disturbance (a typhoon or a meso-α-scale cyclone) invades into the baroclinic zone in the basic field sustained as the sowthwestern edge of the cool Okhotsk air mass. It is interesting that the “heavy rainfall days” there due to the contribution of the persistent “not-so-intense-rain” occur just in such situation

High HOMO levels and narrow energy band gaps of dithienogalloles

We synthesized dithieno[3, 2-b:2′, 3′-d]galloles containing four-coordinated gallium atoms. It was found that dithienogalloles had high stability to air and moisture and showed narrower energy-band gaps than dithienosiloles which are commodity materials in organic opto and/or electronic devices. In addition, relatively-higher HOMO levels were observed from dithienogalloles than those of other dithienoheteroles from electrochemical measurements. We experimentally and theoretically demonstrated the electron-donating properties and resonance effects of gallium atoms of dithienogalloles

Have the tsunami and nuclear accident following the Great East Japan Earthquake affected the local distribution of hospital physicians?

Objective: The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on 11 March 2011 near the northeast coast of the main island, ‘Honshu’, of Japan. It wreaked enormous damage in two main ways: a giant tsunami and an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP). This disaster may have affected the distribution of physicians in the region. Here, we evaluate the effect of the disaster on the distribution of hospital physicians in the three most severely affected prefectures (Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima). Methods: We obtained individual information about physicians from the Physician Census in 2010 (pre-disaster) and 2012 (post-disaster). We examined geographical distributions of physicians in two ways: (1) municipality-based analysis for demographic evaluation; and (2) hospital-based analysis for geographic evaluation. In each analysis, we calculated the rate of change in physician distributions between pre- and post-disaster years at various distances from the tsunami-affected coast, and from the restricted area due to the FDNPP accident. Results: The change in all, hospital, and clinic physicians were 0.2%, 0.7%, and −0.7%, respectively. In the municipality-based analysis, after taking account of the decreased population, physician numbers only decreased within the restricted area. In the hospital-based analysis, hospital physician numbers did not decrease at any distance from the tsunami-affected coast. In contrast, there was a 3.3% and 2.3% decrease in hospital physicians 0–25 km and 25–50 km from the restricted area surrounding the FDNPP, respectively. Additionally, decreases were larger and increases were smaller in areas close to the FDNPP than in areas further away. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the tsunami did not affect the distribution of physicians in the affected regions. However, the FDNPP accident changed physician distribution in areas close to the power plant.This research was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grant Number JP25516015 (http://www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-grants/index.html). The founder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript