# Summary of #hplusroadmap IRC Log (Feb 19, 2016)

• OpenDrop V2, a digital microfluidic bio lab, was shared via YouTube, representing an advancement in open-source laboratory equipment for microfluidic experiments.

• A presentation on "Similarity, Attention and Memory in Semantic Sentence-Pair Scoring" was shared, featuring state-of-the-art natural language processing neural networks, with slides available at http://pasky.or.cz/dev/brmson/sts-intro.pdf.

• A research paper on the growth of half-meter long carbon nanotubes was discussed, highlighting the application of Schulz-Flory distribution to describe the relative ratios of carbon nanotubes of different lengths produced with a floating chemical vapor deposition process.

• The conversation noted that current state-of-the-art NLP systems often use ensemble approaches combining multiple neural network architectures (referred to as "the kaggle mentality"), with one example using 11 LSTMs, 7 Bi-LSTMs, and 10 CNNs trained with different meta-parameters.

• Information about platypus venom was shared, noting that the sequenced peptides fall into three categories: defensin-like peptides (OvDLPs), C-type natriuretic peptides (OvCNPs), and nerve growth factor (OvNGF), with the venom being seasonally active only during breeding season.