Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sharp Minima Can Generalize For Deep Nets

Despite their overwhelming capacity to overfit, deep learning architectures tend to generalize relatively well to unseen data, allowing them to be deployed in practice. However, explaining why this is the case is still an open area of research. One standing hypothesis that is gaining popularity, e.g. Hochreiter & Schmidhuber (1997); Keskar et al. (2017), is that the flatness of minima of the loss function found by stochastic gradient based methods results in good generalization. This paper argues that most notions of flatness are problematic for deep models and can not be directly applied to explain generalization. Specifically, when focusing on deep networks with rectifier units, we can exploit the particular geometry of parameter space induced by the inherent symmetries that these architectures exhibit to build equivalent models corresponding to arbitrarily sharper minima. Furthermore, if we allow to reparametrize a function, the geometry of its parameters can change drastically without affecting its generalization properties.
Inhibition of the TGFβ Pathway Enhances Retinal Regeneration in Adult Zebrafish

In contrast to the mammalian retina, the zebrafish retina exhibits the potential for lifelong retinal neurogenesis and regeneration even after severe damage. Previous studies have shown that the transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) signaling pathway is activated during the regeneration of different tissues in the zebrafish and is needed for regeneration in the heart and the fin. In this study, we have investigated the role of the TGFβ pathway in the N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU)-induced chemical model of rod photoreceptor de- and regeneration in adult zebrafish. Immunohistochemical staining for phosphorylated Smad3 was elevated during retinal regeneration, and phosphorylated Smad3 co-localized with proliferating cell nuclear antigen and glutamine synthetase, indicating TGFβ pathway activation in proliferating Müller glia. Inhibiting the TGFβ signaling pathway using a small molecule inhibitor (SB431542) resulted in accelerated recovery from retinal degeneration. Accordingly, we observed increased cell proliferation in the outer nuclear layer at days 3 to 8 after MNU treatment. In contrast to the observations in the heart and the fin, the inhibition of the TGFβ signaling pathway resulted in increased proliferation after the induction of retinal degeneration. A better understanding of the underlying pathways with the possibility to boost retinal regeneration in adult zebrafish may potentially help to stimulate such proliferation also in other species.
When Movements Matter: The Townsend Plan and the Rise of Social Security

Preface vii Introduction: The Townsend Plan's Image Problem 1 Chapter One: Success or Consequences, and U.S. Social Movements 14 Chapter Two: How the West Was Won Over 35 Chapter Three: Behind the Townsend Plan's Rise and Initial Impact 62 Chapter Four: The Townsend Plan versus Social Security 81 Chapter Five: A National Challenger 105 Chapter Six: Dr. Townsend, Now at the Helm 130 Chapter Seven: The Rise of a Pension Movement 151 Chapter Eight: The Townsend Plan versus Social Security, Part 2 176 Chapter Nine: The Elusive Double Victory 197 Conclusion: A Hero for the Aged? 221 Acknowledgments 243 Notes 245 Index 311
NET Institute* www.NETinst.org

Recent technological and market forces have profoundly impacted the music industry. Emphasizing threats from peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies, the industry continues to seek sanctions against individuals who offer significant number of songs for others to copy. Yet there is little rigorous empirical analysis of the impacts of online sharing on the success of music products. Combining data on the performance of music albums on the Billboard charts with file sharing data from a popular network, we: 1) assess the impact of recent developments related to the music industry on survival of music albums on the charts, and 2) evaluate the specific impact of P2P sharing on an album’s survival on the charts. In the post P2P era, we find significantly reduced chart survival. The second phase of our study isolates the impact of file sharing on album survival. We find that sharing does not seem to hurt the survival of albums.
Searching for narrow graviton resonances with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider

A spectrum of massive graviton states is present in several recent theoretical models that include extra space dimensions. In some such models the graviton states are well separated in mass, and can be detected as resonances in collider experiments. The ability of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider to identify such states and measure their properties is considered, in the case that the resonances are narrow compared to the experimental resolution. The discovery limits for the detection of the decay mode G→e+e− are derived. The angular distribution of the lepton pair is used to determine the spin of the intermediate state. In one specific model, the resonance can be detected up to a graviton resonance mass of 2080 GeV, while the angular distribution favours a spin-2 hypothesis over a spin-1 hypothesis at 90% confidence for resonance masses up to 1720 GeV.
Heterogeneity-aware Distributed Parameter Servers

We study distributed machine learning in heterogeneous environments in this work. We first conduct a systematic study of existing systems running distributed stochastic gradient descent; we find that, although these systems work well in homogeneous environments, they can suffer performance degradation, sometimes up to 10x, in heterogeneous environments where stragglers are common because their synchronization protocols cannot fit a heterogeneous setting. Our first contribution is a heterogeneity-aware algorithm that uses a constant learning rate schedule for updates before adding them to the global parameter. This allows us to suppress stragglers' harm on robust convergence. As a further improvement, our second contribution is a more sophisticated learning rate schedule that takes into consideration the delayed information of each update. We theoretically prove the valid convergence of both approaches and implement a prototype system in the production cluster of our industrial partner Tencent Inc. We validate the performance of this prototype using a range of machine-learning workloads. Our prototype is 2-12x faster than other state-of-the-art systems, such as Spark, Petuum, and TensorFlow; and our proposed algorithm takes up to 6x fewer iterations to converge.
Anti-NR2A/B Antibodies and Other Major Molecular Mechanisms in the Pathogenesis of Cognitive Dysfunction in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that affects approximately 1–45.3 per 100,000 people worldwide. Although deaths as a result of active and renal diseases have been substantially declining amongst SLE patients, disease involving the central nervous system (CNS), collectively termed neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE), remains one of the important causes of death in these patients. Cognitive dysfunction is one of the most common manifestations of NPSLE, which comprises deficits in information-processing speed, attention and executive function, in conjunction with preservation of speech. Albeit a prevalent manifestation of NPSLE, the pathogenetic mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction remain unclear. Recent advances in genetic studies, molecular techniques, neuropathology, neuroimaging and cognitive science have gleaned valuable insights into the pathophysiology of lupus-related cognitive dysfunction. In recent years, a role for autoantibodies, molecular and cellular mechanisms in cognitive dysfunction, has been emerging, challenging our previous concept of the brain as an immune privileged site. This review will focus on the potential pathogenic factors involved in NPSLE, including anti-N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor subunit NR2A/B (anti-NR2A/B) antibodies, matrix metalloproteinase-9, neutrophil extracellular traps and pro-inflammatory mediators. Better understanding of these mechanistic processes will enhance identification of new therapeutic modalities to halt the progression of cognitive decline in SLE patients.
Fixpoint & Proof-theoretic Semantics for CLP with Qualification and Proximity

Uncertainty in Logic Programming has been investigated during the last decades, dealing with various extensions of the classical LP paradigm and different applications. Existing proposals rely on different approaches, such as clause annotations based on uncertain truth values, qualification values as a generalization of uncertain truth values, and unification based on proximity relations. On the other hand, the CLP scheme has established itself as a powerful extension of LP that supports efficient computation over specialized domains while keeping a clean declarative semantics. In this report we propose a new scheme SQCLP designed as an extension of CLP that supports qualification values and proximity relations. We show that several previous proposals can be viewed as particular cases of the new scheme, obtained by partial instantiation. We present a declarative semantics for SQCLP that is based on observables, providing fixpoint and proof-theoretical characterizations of least program models as well as an implementation-independent notion of goal solutions.
A Two-Stage Model of Category Construction

The current consensus is thot most notural categories are not organized around strict definitions (a list of singly necessary ond jointly sufficient features) but rather according t.a a fomily resemblance (FR) principle: Objects belong to the same category because they are similor to each other and dissimilar to obfects in contrast categories. A number of computational models of category construction hove been developed to provide an’account of how and why people create FR categories (Anderson. 1990; Fisher, 1987). Surprisingly, however, only o few experiments on category construction or free sorting have been run and they suggest that people do not sort examptes by the FR principle. We report several new experiments and a two-stage model for category construction. This model is contrasted with a variety of other models with respect to their ability to account for when FR sorting will and will not occur. The experiments serve to identify one basis for FR sorting and to support the two-stage model. The distinctive property of the two-stage model is that it assumes that people impose more structure than the examples support in the first stage and thot the second stage adjusts for this difference between preferred and perceived structure. We speculate that people do not simply ossimilate probabilistic structures but rather organize them in terms of discrete structures plus noise.
Native Speaker Reaction to Instructor-Identified Student Second-Language Errors.

grading and correction procedures. Depending upon the particular instructor's personal biases, some errors will be ignored, others will be tolerated, and others, like dandelions or crabgrass in the lawn, will be the object of intense and repeated efforts directed toward complete and perpetual banishment from the students' linguistic repertoire. Which student language errors interfere to the greatest degree with comprehension by native speakers of the language? ' Given the amount of redundancy in the linguistic system, native speakers can obviously understand much non-native speech, perhaps even a majority, even though the communications are not identical to those which they themselves would utilize in the same situation. In
3D Shape Perception in Posterior Cortical Atrophy: A Visual Neuroscience Perspective

Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a rare focal neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by progressive visuoperceptual and visuospatial deficits, most often due to atypical Alzheimer's disease (AD). We applied insights from basic visual neuroscience to analyze 3D shape perception in humans affected by PCA. Thirteen PCA patients and 30 matched healthy controls participated, together with two patient control groups with diffuse Lewy body dementia (DLBD) and an amnestic-dominant phenotype of AD, respectively. The hierarchical study design consisted of 3D shape processing for 4 cues (shading, motion, texture, and binocular disparity) with corresponding 2D and elementary feature extraction control conditions. PCA and DLBD exhibited severe 3D shape-processing deficits and AD to a lesser degree. In PCA, deficient 3D shape-from-shading was associated with volume loss in the right posterior inferior temporal cortex. This region coincided with a region of functional activation during 3D shape-from-shading in healthy controls. In PCA patients who performed the same fMRI paradigm, response amplitude during 3D shape-from-shading was reduced in this region. Gray matter volume in this region also correlated with 3D shape-from-shading in AD. 3D shape-from-disparity in PCA was associated with volume loss slightly more anteriorly in posterior inferior temporal cortex as well as in ventral premotor cortex. The findings in right posterior inferior temporal cortex and right premotor cortex are consistent with neurophysiologically based models of the functional anatomy of 3D shape processing. However, in DLBD, 3D shape deficits rely on mechanisms distinct from inferior temporal structural integrity. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by progressive visuoperceptual dysfunction and most often an atypical presentation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) affecting the ventral and dorsal visual streams rather than the medial temporal system. We applied insights from fundamental visual neuroscience to analyze 3D shape perception in PCA. 3D shape-processing deficits were affected beyond what could be accounted for by lower-order processing deficits. For shading and disparity, this was related to volume loss in regions previously implicated in 3D shape processing in the intact human and nonhuman primate brain. Typical amnestic-dominant AD patients also exhibited 3D shape deficits. Advanced visual neuroscience provides insight into the pathogenesis of PCA that also bears relevance for vision in typical AD.
Implant success rates in full-arch rehabilitations supported by upright and tilted implants: a retrospective investigation with up to five years of follow-up

Purpose The aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the cumulative success rate, the implant survival rate, and the occurrence of biological complications in implants supporting full-arch immediately loaded rehabilitations supported by upright and tilted implants. Methods The clinical records and periapical radiographs of patients who attended follow-up visits were collected, and information was recorded regarding marginal bone loss resorption, the occurrence of peri-implant infectious diseases, and the implant survival rate. Implants were classified as successful or not successful according to two distinct classifications for implant success. Results A total of 53 maxillary and mandibular restorations including 212 implants were analysed, of which 56 implants were studied over the full five-year follow-up period. After five years, the cumulative success rate was 76.04% according to the Misch classification and 56.34% according to the Albrektsson classification. The cumulative implant survival rate was 100%, although one implant was found to be affected by peri-implantitis at the second follow-up visit. Conclusions The cumulative success rate of the implants dropped over time, corresponding to the progression of marginal bone resorption. The prevalence of peri-implantitis was very low, and the implant survival rate was not found to be related to the cumulative success rate.
Feminism, Identity and Difference

Identity crises - identity, identity politics and beyond, Susan Hekman difference as an occasion for rights - a feminist rethinking of rights, liberalism, and difference, Nancy J. Hirschmann bodies, passion and citizenship, Shane Phelan is the postmodern self a feminized citizen? Eloise A. Buker feminizing race, Rajani Sudan.
Innate Immunity Signaling: Cytosolic Ca2+ Elevation Is Linked to Downstream Nitric Oxide Generation through the Action of Calmodulin or a Calmodulin-Like Protein1[W][OA]

Ca2+ rise and nitric oxide (NO) generation are essential early steps in plant innate immunity and initiate the hypersensitive response (HR) to avirulent pathogens. Previous work from this laboratory has demonstrated that a loss-of-function mutation of an Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) plasma membrane Ca2+-permeable inwardly conducting ion channel impairs HR and that this phenotype could be rescued by the application of a NO donor. At present, the mechanism linking cytosolic Ca2+ rise to NO generation during pathogen response signaling in plants is still unclear. Animal nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activation is Ca2+/calmodulin (CaM) dependent. Here, we present biochemical and genetic evidence consistent with a similar regulatory mechanism in plants: a pathogen-induced Ca2+ signal leads to CaM and/or a CaM-like protein (CML) activation of NOS. In wild-type Arabidopsis plants, the use of a CaM antagonist prevents NO generation and the HR. Application of a CaM antagonist does not prevent pathogen-induced cytosolic Ca2+ elevation, excluding the possibility of CaM acting upstream from Ca2+. The CaM antagonist and Ca2+ chelation abolish NO generation in wild-type Arabidopsis leaf protein extracts as well, suggesting that plant NOS activity is Ca2+/CaM dependent in vitro. The CaM-like protein CML24 has been previously associated with NO-related phenotypes in Arabidopsis. Here, we find that innate immune response phenotypes (HR and [avirulent] pathogen-induced NO elevation in leaves) are inhibited in loss-of-function cml24-4 mutant plants. Pathogen-associated molecular pattern-mediated NO generation in cells of cml24-4 mutants is impaired as well. Our work suggests that the initial pathogen recognition signal of Ca2+ influx into the cytosol activates CaM and/or a CML, which then acts to induce downstream NO synthesis as intermediary steps in a pathogen perception signaling cascade, leading to innate immune responses, including the HR.
MRI brain changes in subjects with Down syndrome with and without dementia

Individuals with Down syndrome (DS), a disorder of known genetic etiology (trisomy of chromosome 21), exhibit several types of structural brain abnormalities that are detectable pathologically and by MRI. In addition, in middle age, individuals with DS develop histological and, in some cases, clinical features of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Abnormalities in MRI scans of 50 adults with DS, 11 of whom had clinical dementia, are described and compared with those of 23 cognitively normal, healthy subjects who were matched for age, sex, and race. Qualitative visual analogue scale (VAS) ratings on MRI hard copies for all subjects and computer‐aided volume measures for a subsample of subjects were carried out. On VAS, subjects with DS had larger lateral ventricles, a higher frequency of posterior fossa arachnoid cysts/megacisterna magna and fewer scans rated as normal compared with controls. Quantitatively, total brain and gray‐matter volumes were reduced in DS, as were the volumes of the left hippocampus and amygdala; ventricle volumes were larger. Post hoc comparisons of subjects with DS with and without dementia revealed that on VAS the former had more generalized atrophy for age, mesial temporal shrinkage, and third ventricular enlargement. Similarly, total train, left hippocampus, and left amygdala volumes were reduced quantitatively in subjects with DS with dementia, while ventricular volumes were increased.
Fixed poles for the disturbance rejection by measurement feedback: The case without any controllability assumption

The fixed poles for the problem of Disturbance Rejection by Measurement Feedback are geometrically and structurally characterized (in terms of invariant zeros and non controllable poles) for systems which are globally observable but without any controllability assumption and the dual case, system globally controllable but without any observability assumption.
The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War

THE INSURGENTS unfolds against the backdrop of two wars waged against insurgencies-- wars which the Pentagon's top generals didn't know how to fight. But a small group of soldiers and scholars did have a plan for fighting these kinds of wars, people like General David Petraeus and Colonels John Nagl, David Kilcullen, and H.R. McMaster. In order to push the idea of "counterinsurgency" warfare, they behaved like insurgents within their own army-and very self-consciously so. Fred Kaplan explains where this idea came from, and how the men and women who latched onto this idea created a community (some would refer to themselves as a "cabal") that maneuvered the idea through the highest echelons of power. But this is also a cautionary tale about how even creative ideas can harden into dogma, how smart strategists-the "best and the brightest" of our times-can sometimes sway politicians but don't always win wars. The Insurgents made their military more adaptive to the conflicts of the post-Cold War era, but their self-confidence led us deeper into wars that we shouldn't have been fighting and perhaps couldn't have been won.
Temperature Measurement in PV Facilities on a Per-Panel Scale

This paper presents the design, construction and testing of an instrumentation system for temperature measurement in PV facilities on a per-panel scale (i.e., one or more temperature measurements per panel). Its main characteristics are: precision, ease of connection, immunity to noise, remote operation, easy scaling; and all of this at a very low cost. The paper discusses the advantages of temperature measurements in PV facilities on a per-panel scale. The paper presents the whole development to implementation of a real system that is being tested in an actual facility. This has enabled the authors to provide the readers with practical guidelines, which would be very difficult to achieve if the developments were implemented by just simulation or in a theoretical way. The instrumentation system is fully developed, from the temperature sensing to its presentation in a virtual instrument. The developed instrumentation system is able to work both locally and remotely connected to both wired and wireless network.
Accountability : power, ethos, and the technologies of managing

Introduction. Alignment and identity work. Section I: The Self-Thinking Accountability. Hugh Wilmot From discipline to discipline. John Roberts Narrating accountability. Richard Boland and Ulrike Schulze. Section II: Encounters in Networks. Accountabilities on the move. Kristian Kreiner. Decoupling Hierarchy and Accountability. Sten Jonsson. Refining Accountabilities Simon Lilley. Section III: Manoeuvres in Networks. Financial and Operational models of accountability. Thomas Ahrens. Managed Financial Disclosure. Carla Carnaghan, Mike Gibbons and Seppo IkSheimo. Section IV: Center of Calculation. The arrival of an accountability. Brendon MsSweeny. Principles and higher principles. Richard Laughlin. Spaces of accountability. Katrine Kirk & Jan Mouritsen. Section V: Center of discretion. The awful idea of accountability. Keith Hoskin. Organizing accountabilities. John Law. Changing Times and accounts. Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges.