How to Evaluate your Question Answering System Every Day and Still Get Real Work Done

In this paper, we report on Qaviar, an experimental automated evaluation system for question answering applications. The goal of our research was to find an automatically calculated measure that correlates well with human judges' assessment of answer correctness in the context of question answering tasks. Qaviar judges the response by computing recall against the stemmed content words in the human-generated answer key. It counts the answer correct if it exceeds agiven recall threshold. We determined that the answer correctness predicted by Qaviar agreed with the human 93% to 95% of the time. 41 question-answering systems were ranked by both Qaviar and human assessors, and these rankings correlated with a Kendall's Tau measure of 0.920, compared to a correlation of 0.956 between human assessors on the same data.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2000

Wireless optogenetics protects against obesity via stimulation of non-canonical fat thermogenesis.

Cold stimuli and the subsequent activation of β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) potently stimulate adipose tissue thermogenesis and increase whole-body energy expenditure. However, systemic activation of the β3-AR pathway inevitably increases blood pressure, a significant risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and, thus, limits its application for the treatment of obesity. To activate fat thermogenesis under tight spatiotemporal control without external stimuli, here, we report an implantable wireless optogenetic device that bypasses the β-AR pathway and triggers Ca2+ cycling selectively in adipocytes. The wireless optogenetics stimulation in the subcutaneous adipose tissue potently activates Ca2+ cycling fat thermogenesis and increases whole-body energy expenditure without cold stimuli. Significantly, the light-induced fat thermogenesis was sufficient to protect mice from diet-induced body-weight gain. The present study provides the first proof-of-concept that fat-specific cold mimetics via activating non-canonical thermogenesis protect against obesity

Study of hydrogen isotopes behavior in tungsten by a multi trapping macroscopic rate equation model

International audienceDensity functional theory (DFT) studies show that in tungsten a mono vacancy can contain up to six hydrogen isotopes (HIs) at 300 K with detrapping energies varying with the number of HIs inthe vacancy. Using these predictions, a multi trapping rate equation model has been built and used to model thermal desorption spectrometry (TDS) experiments performed on single crystaltungsten after deuterium ions implantation. Detrapping energies obtained from the model to adjust temperature of TDS spectrum observed experimentally are in good agreement with DFTvalues within a deviation below 10%. The desorption spectrum as well as the diffusion of deuterium in the bulk are rationalized in light of the model results

Cine e instituciones represivas

Ferro, M. (1991). Cine e instituciones represivas. Nosferatu. Revista de cine. (7):18-21. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/40782.Importación Masiva1821

Soviet System and its Implosion

The author explains how transformation of society led to the collapse of the Soviet system. Transformation of Soviet society brought the need for political reform which consequently undermined the autonomy of social issues. This phenomenon produced the fall of communism, described as the gradual corruption of its basic features: bolchevization of public opinion, institutionalisation of the party as dominant body, bureaucracy and a plebeianisation of power. The regime had not counted on the perverse effects of its policy which were to transform it from within.Cet article explique comment le système soviétique a implosé du fait de la transformation de la société. C'est elle qui a déterminé une réforme politique ayant abouti à une faillite de l'autonomie du social. Pour rendre compte de la chute du communisme entraînée par ce phénomène, l'article montre comment ses caractéristiques essentielles se sont dévoyées : bolchévisation de l'opinion, institution de parti comme instance dominante, bureaucratisation, plebeianisation du pouvoir. Des effets pervers, non voulus par le régime, l'ont ainsi transformé du dedans, résultat de sa politique

Trajectoire d’un engagement

Revenant sur différentes étapes de sa trajectoire, Marc Ferro élucide avec Béatrice Fleury-Vilatte et Jacques Walter certaines des articulations entre engagement personnel et engagement professionnel. Ainsi, la Résistance et la guerre d’Algérie sont-elles des moments clés où sont apparus les fondements des recherches qu’il mène depuis. L’évocation de ces périodes lui permet de démontrer qu’expériences personnelles et travaux scientifiques ne doivent pas interférer, même s’ils ne peuvent être totalement indépendants les uns des autres. En effet, c’est l’analyse de situations qui lui permet de porter un jugement et de s’engager, non l’inverse. Précisant les contradictions susceptibles de naître lorsque le chercheur est présent dans l’espace public, Marc Ferro interroge les contrastes qui caractérisent deux lieux d’interventions : les procès et les médias. Si l’historien craint l’instrumentalisation qui peut surgir dans des configurations judiciaires, à l’inverse, il encourage la prise de parole dans les médias qui favorise la circulation et la diffusion des idées.Reconsidering various stages of his trajectory, Marc Ferro elucidates with Béatrice Fleury-Vilatte and Jacques Walter some of the articulations between personal engagement and professional engagement. Thus, the Resistance and the war of Algeria are key moments where appeared the bases of his researches which he carries out since. The evocation of these periods enables him to show that personal experiments and scientific work should not interfere, even if they cannot be completely independent from each others. Indeed, it is the analysis of situations which enables him to make an assessment and to be engaged, not the reverse. Specifying contradictions likely to be born when the researcher is present in public space, Marc Ferro questions contrasts which characterize two places of interventions : lawsuits and media. If the historian fears the instrumentalisation which can emerge in legal configurations, conversely, he encourages the speech in the media which supports the circulation and the diffusion of ideas