University of Alberta

About: University of Alberta is a education organization based out in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 65403 authors who have published 154847 publications receiving 5358338 citations. The organization is also known as: Ualberta & UAlberta.

SemEval-2016 Task 6: Detecting Stance in Tweets

Abstract: Here for the first time we present a shared task on detecting stance from tweets: given a tweet and a target entity (person, organization, etc.), automatic natural language systems must determine whether the tweeter is in favor of the given target, against the given target, or whether neither inference is likely. The target of interest may or may not be referred to in the tweet, and it may or may not be the target of opinion. Two tasks are proposed. Task A is a traditional supervised classification task where 70% of the annotated data for a target is used as training and the rest for testing. For Task B, we use as test data all of the instances for a new target (not used in task A) and no training data is provided. Our shared task received submissions from 19 teams for Task A and from 9 teams for Task B. The highest classification F-score obtained was 67.82 for Task A and 56.28 for Task B. However, systems found it markedly more difficult to infer stance towards the target of interest from tweets that express opinion towards another entity.

SARS-coronavirus modulation of myocardial ACE2 expression and inflammation in patients with SARS.

Abstract: Background Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a monocarboxylase that degrades angiotensin II to angiotensin 1–7, is also the functional receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronavirus (SARS‐CoV) and is highly expressed in the lungs and heart. Patients with SARS also suffered from cardiac disease including arrhythmias, sudden cardiac death, and systolic and diastolic dysfunction. Materials and methods We studied mice infected with the human strain of the SARS‐CoV and encephalomyocarditis virus and examined ACE2 mRNA and protein expression. Autopsy heart samples from patients who succumbed to the SARS crisis in Toronto (Canada) were used to investigate the impact of SARS on myocardial structure, inflammation and ACE2 protein expression. Results Pulmonary infection with the human SARS‐CoV in mice led to an ACE2‐dependent myocardial infection with a marked decrease in ACE2 expression confirming a critical role of ACE2 in mediating SARS‐CoV infection in the heart. The SARS‐CoV viral RNA was detected in 35% (7/20) of autopsied human heart samples obtained from patients who succumbed to the SARS crisis during the Toronto SARS outbreak. Macrophage‐specific staining showed a marked increase in macrophage infiltration with evidence of myocardial damage in patients who had SARS‐CoV in their hearts. The presence of SARS‐CoV in the heart was also associated with marked reductions in ACE2 protein expression. Conclusions Our data show that SARS‐CoV can mediate myocardial inflammation and damage associated with down‐regulation of myocardial ACE2 system, which may be responsible for the myocardial dysfunction and adverse cardiac outcomes in patients with SARS.

Biopreservation by lactic acid bacteria.

Abstract: Biopreservation refers to extended storage life and enhanced safety of foods using the natural microflora and (or) their antibacterial products. Lactic acid bacteria have a major potential for use in biopreservation because they are safe to consume and during storage they naturally dominate the microflora of many foods. In milk, brined vegetables, many cereal products and meats with added carbohydrate, the growth of lactic acid bacteria produces a new food product. In raw meats and fish that are chill stored under vacuum or in an environment with elevated carbon dioxide concentration, the lactic acid bacteria become the dominant population and preserve the meat with a "hidden' fermentation. The same applies to processed meats provided that the lactic acid bacteria survive the heat treatment or they are inoculated onto the product after heat treatment. This paper reviews the current status and potential for controlled biopreservation of foods.