Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Group-Based Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers for Distributed Linear Classification

The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm has been widely employed for distributed machine learning tasks. However, it suffers from several limitations, e.g., a relative low convergence speed, and an expensive time cost. To this end, in this paper, a novel method, namely the group-based ADMM (GADMM), is proposed for distributed linear classification. In particular, to accelerate the convergence speed and improve global consensus, a group layer is first utilized in GADMM to divide all the slave nodes into several groups. Then, all the local variables (from the slave nodes) are gathered in the group layer to generate different group variables. Finally, by using a weighted average method, the group variables are coordinated to update the global variable (from the master node) until the solution of the global problem is reached. According to the theoretical analysis, we found that: 1) GADMM can mathematically converge at the rate $O({1}/{k})$ , where ${k}$ is the number of outer iterations and 2) by using the grouping methods, GADMM can improve the convergence speed compared with the distributed ADMM framework without grouping methods. Moreover, we systematically evaluate GADMM on four publicly available LIBSVM datasets. Compared with disADMM and stochastic dual coordinate ascent with alternating direction method of multipliers-ADMM, for distributed classification, GADMM is able to reduce the number of outer iterations, which leads to faster convergence speed and better global consensus. In particular, the statistical significance test has been experimentally conducted and the results validate that GADMM can significantly save up to 30% of the total time cost (with less than 0.6% accuracy loss) compared with disADMM on large-scale datasets, e.g., webspam and epsilon.
Heterozygous Disruption of Renal Outer Medullary Potassium Channel in Rats Is Associated With Reduced Blood Pressure

The renal outer medullary potassium channel (ROMK, KCNJ1) mediates potassium recycling and facilitates sodium reabsorption through the Na+/K+/2Cl− cotransporter in the loop of Henle and potassium secretion at the cortical collecting duct. Human genetic studies indicate that ROMK homozygous loss-of-function mutations cause type II Bartter syndrome, featuring polyuria, renal salt wasting, and hypotension; humans heterozygous for ROMK mutations identified in the Framingham Heart Study have reduced blood pressure. ROMK null mice recapitulate many of the features of type II Bartter syndrome. We have generated an ROMK knockout rat model in Dahl salt-sensitive background by using zinc finger nuclease technology and investigated the effects of knocking out ROMK on systemic and renal hemodynamics and kidney histology in the Dahl salt-sensitive rats. The ROMK−/− pups recapitulated features identified in the ROMK null mice. The ROMK+/− rats, when challenged with a 4% salt diet, exhibited a reduced blood pressure compared with their ROMK+/+ littermates. More importantly, when challenged with an 8% salt diet, the Dahl salt-sensitive rats with 50% less ROMK expression showed increased protection from salt-induced blood pressure elevation and signs of protection from renal injury. Our findings in ROMK knockout Dahl salt-sensitive rats, together with the previous reports in humans and mice, underscore a critical role of ROMK in blood pressure regulation.
Thinking that one's life was in danger: perceived life threat in individuals directly or indirectly exposed to terror.

BACKGROUND Perceived life threat is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Still, it is not known whether perceived threat may be important for PTSD in people indirectly exposed to trauma. AIMS To examine the prevalence of perceived life threat and the association with PTSD in individuals directly or indirectly exposed to terror. METHOD Data are cross-sectional from a survey 10 months after the 2011 Oslo bombing. Perceived life threat was measured by the question: 'How great do you think the danger was that you would die? ' scored on a five-point scale. PTSD was measured with the PTSD Checklist (PCL). RESULTS The retrospective belief that one's life was in great or overwhelming danger was reported by 65% and 22% of employees who had been present or not present, respectively, at the site of the bomb explosion (n = 1923). A high perceived life threat was associated with PTSD among those present (odds ratio (OR) = 5.7, 95% CI 1.9-16.9) and not present (OR = 5.2. 95% CI 3.0-9.0), even after adjusting for objective exposure, demographics and neuroticism. CONCLUSIONS Perceived life threat may play a central role in the development and maintenance of PTSD in people directly as well as indirectly exposed to terror. Moderating perceptions of having been in serious danger may be an appropriate approach to the prevention and treatment of PTSD.
Mithramycin-loaded mPEG-PLGA nanoparticles exert potent antitumor efficacy against pancreatic carcinoma

Previous studies have shown that mithramycin A (MIT) is a promising candidate for the treatment of pancreatic carcinoma through inhibiting transcription factor Sp1. However, systemic toxicities may limit its clinical application. Here, we report a rationally designed formulation of MIT-loaded nanoparticles (MIT-NPs) with a small size and sustained release for improved passive targeting and enhanced therapeutic efficacy. Nearly spherical MIT-NPs with a mean particle size of 25.0±4.6 nm were prepared by encapsulating MIT into methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(d,l-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (mPEG-PLGA) nanoparticles (NPs) with drug loading of 2.11%±0.51%. The in vitro release of the MIT-NPs lasted for >48 h with a sustained-release pattern. The cytotoxicity of MIT-NPs to human pancreatic cancer BxPC-3 and MIA Paca-2 cells was comparable to that of free MIT. Determined by flow cytometry and confocal microscopy, the NPs internalized into the cells quickly and efficiently, reaching the peak level at 1–2 h. In vivo fluorescence imaging showed that the prepared NPs were gradually accumulated in BxPC-3 and MIA Paca-2 xenografts and retained for 168 h. The fluorescence intensity in both BxPC-3 and MIA Paca-2 tumors was much stronger than that of various tested organs. Therapeutic efficacy was evaluated with the poorly permeable BxPC-3 pancreatic carcinoma xenograft model. At a well-tolerated dose of 2 mg/kg, MIT-NPs suppressed BxPC-3 tumor growth by 96%. Compared at an equivalent dose, MIT-NPs exerted significantly higher therapeutic effect than free MIT (86% versus 51%, P<0.01). Moreover, the treatment of MIT and MIT-NPs reduced the expression level of oncogene c-Myc regulated by Sp1, and notably, both of them decreased the protein level of CD47. In summary, the novel formulation of MIT-NPs shows highly therapeutic efficacy against pancreatic carcinoma xenograft. In addition, MIT-NPs can downregulate CD47 expression, implying that it might play a positive role in cancer immunotherapy.
Spontaneous Altruism by Chimpanzees and Young Children

People often act on behalf of others. They do so without immediate personal gain, at cost to themselves, and even toward unfamiliar individuals. Many researchers have claimed that such altruism emanates from a species-unique psychology not found in humans' closest living evolutionary relatives, such as the chimpanzee. In favor of this view, the few experimental studies on altruism in chimpanzees have produced mostly negative results. In contrast, we report experimental evidence that chimpanzees perform basic forms of helping in the absence of rewards spontaneously and repeatedly toward humans and conspecifics. In two comparative studies, semi–free ranging chimpanzees helped an unfamiliar human to the same degree as did human infants, irrespective of being rewarded (experiment 1) or whether the helping was costly (experiment 2). In a third study, chimpanzees helped an unrelated conspecific gain access to food in a novel situation that required subjects to use a newly acquired skill on behalf of another individual. These results indicate that chimpanzees share crucial aspects of altruism with humans, suggesting that the roots of human altruism may go deeper than previous experimental evidence suggested.
Neon2: Finding Local Minima via First-Order Oracles

We propose a reduction for non-convex optimization that can (1) turn an stationary-point finding algorithm into an local-minimum finding one, and (2) replace the Hessian-vector product computations with only gradient computations. It works both in the stochastic and the deterministic settings, without hurting the algorithm's performance. As applications, our reduction turns Natasha2 into a first-order method without hurting its performance. It also converts SGD, GD, SCSG, and SVRG into algorithms finding approximate local minima, outperforming some best known results.
Insight into the Stigma of Suicide Loss Survivors: Factor Analyses of Family Stereotypes, Prejudices, and Discriminations

Families of individuals who die by suicide report public stigma that threatens their well-being. This study used a community-based participatory (CBPR) approach to describe a factor structure for the family stigma of suicide. Candidate items (n = 82) from a previous qualitative study were presented in an online survey format. Members of the public (n = 232) indicated how much they thought items represented public views and behaviors towards family members who lost a loved one to suicide. Factor analyses revealed two factors for stereotypes (dysfunctional, blameworthy), one factor for prejudice (fear and distrust), and three factors for discrimination (exclusion, secrecy, and avoidance).
iRDMA: Efficient Use of RDMA in Distributed Deep Learning Systems

Distributed deep learning systems place stringent requirement on communication bandwidth in its model training with large volumes of input data under user-time constraint. The communications take place mainly between cluster of worker nodes for training data and parameter servers for maintaining a global trained model. For fast convergence the worker nodes and parameter servers have to frequently exchange billions of parameters to quickly broadcast updates and minimize staleness. Demand on the bandwidth becomes even higher with the introduction of dedicated GPUs in the computation. While RDMA-capable network has a great potential to provide sufficiently high bandwidth, its current use over TCP/IP or tied to particular programming models, such as MPI, limits its capability to break the bandwidth bottleneck. In this work we propose iRDMA, an RDMA-based parameter server architecture optimized for high-performance network environment supporting both GPU- and CPU-based training. It utilizes native asynchronous RDMA verbs to achieve network line speed while minimizing the communication processing cost on both worker and parameter-server sides. Furthermore, iRDMA exposes the parameter server system as a POSIX-compatible file API for convenient support of load balance and fault tolerance as well as its easy use. We have implemented iRDMA at IBM's deep learning platform. Experiment results show that our design can help deep learning applications, including image recognition and language classification, to achieve near-linear improvement on convergence speed and training accuracy acceleration by using distributed computing resources. From the system perspective, iRDMA can efficiently utilize about 95% network bandwidth of fast networks to synchronize models among distributed training processes.
Prevalence of peri‐implantitis in patients not participating in well‐designed supportive periodontal treatments: a cross‐sectional study

OBJECTIVES This retrospective cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of biologic complications of implants in patients treated by fixed implant supported prosthesis without regular maintenance program. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred thirty-four patients with 478 implants, installed during a 10-year period (2001-2010), were recruited for clinical and radiographic follow-up examinations. The periodontal and implant health status were assessed to determine the prevalence of peri-implant diseases. RESULTS The mean ± SD loading time for implants was 4.43 ± 2.25 years. Fifty-five percentage of the implants were tissue-level implants. Peri-implantitis was diagnosed in 20% of patients and 8.8% of implants. Subject-based and implant-based prevalence of mucositis amounted to 48.5% and 40%, respectively. Mean crestal bone loss in tissue-level and bone-level implants were 0.28 ± 0.53 mm and 1.37 ± 1.5 mm, respectively. Smoking and lack of keratinized mucosa was associated with peri-implantitis at an odds ratio of OR = 2.57 and 3.89, respectively. CONCLUSIONS After a 5-year period of loading without any regular maintenance program, one out of five patients would experience peri-implantitis. Tissue-level implants had lower values of peri-implantitis prevalence and crestal bone loss.
PAM: parallel augmented maps

Ordered (key-value) maps are an important and widely-used data type for large-scale data processing frameworks. Beyond simple search, insertion and deletion, more advanced operations such as range extraction, filtering, and bulk updates form a critical part of these frameworks. We describe an interface for ordered maps that is augmented to support fast range queries and sums, and introduce a parallel and concurrent library called PAM (Parallel Augmented Maps) that implements the interface. The interface includes a wide variety of functions on augmented maps ranging from basic insertion and deletion to more interesting functions such as union, intersection, filtering, extracting ranges, splitting, and range-sums. We describe algorithms for these functions that are efficient both in theory and practice. As examples of the use of the interface and the performance of PAM we apply the library to four applications: simple range sums, interval trees, 2D range trees, and ranked word index searching. The interface greatly simplifies the implementation of these data structures over direct implementations. Sequentially the code achieves performance that matches or exceeds existing libraries designed specially for a single application, and in parallel our implementation gets speedups ranging from 40 to 90 on 72 cores with 2-way hyperthreading.
Differential neural reward mechanisms in treatment-responsive and treatment-resistant schizophrenia

Abstract Background The significant proportion of schizophrenia patients refractory to treatment, primarily directed at the dopamine system, suggests that multiple mechanisms may underlie psychotic symptoms. Reinforcement learning tasks have been employed in schizophrenia to assess dopaminergic functioning and reward processing, but these have not directly compared groups of treatment-refractory and non-refractory patients. Methods In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging study, 21 patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS), 21 patients with non-treatment-resistant schizophrenia (NTR), and 24 healthy controls (HC) performed a probabilistic reinforcement learning task, utilizing emotionally valenced face stimuli which elicit a social bias toward happy faces. Behavior was characterized with a reinforcement learning model. Trial-wise reward prediction error (RPE)-related neural activation and the differential impact of emotional bias on these reward signals were compared between groups. Results Patients showed impaired reinforcement learning relative to controls, while all groups demonstrated an emotional bias favoring happy faces. The pattern of RPE signaling was similar in the HC and TRS groups, whereas NTR patients showed significant attenuation of RPE-related activation in striatal, thalamic, precentral, parietal, and cerebellar regions. TRS patients, but not NTR patients, showed a positive relationship between emotional bias and RPE signal during negative feedback in bilateral thalamus and caudate. Conclusion TRS can be dissociated from NTR on the basis of a different neural mechanism underlying reinforcement learning. The data support the hypothesis that a favorable response to antipsychotic treatment is contingent on dopaminergic dysfunction, characterized by aberrant RPE signaling, whereas treatment resistance may be characterized by an abnormality of a non-dopaminergic mechanism – a glutamatergic mechanism would be a possible candidate.
Introducing Global and Regional Mainstreaminess for Improving Personalized Music Recommendation

The music mainstreaminess of a user reflects how strong a user's listening preferences correspond to those of the larger population. Considering that music mainstream may be defined from different perspectives and on various levels, e.g., geographical (charts of a country), genre ("Indie charts"), or distribution channel (radio charts vs. download charts), we study how the user's music mainstreaminess influences the quality of music recommendations. The paper's contribution is three-fold. First, we propose 11 novel mainstreaminess measures characterizing music listeners, considering both a global and a country-specific basis. To this end, we model preference profiles (as a vector over artists) for users, countries, and globally, incorporating artist frequency, listener frequency, and a newly proposed TF-IDF-inspired weighting function, which we call artist frequency--inverse listener frequency (AF-ILF). The resulting preference profile for each user u is then related to the respective country-specific and global preference profile using fraction-based approaches, symmetrized Kullback-Leibler divergence, and Kendall's τ rank correlation, in order to quantify u's mainstreaminess. Second, we demonstrate country-specific peculiarities of these mainstreaminess definitions. Third, we show that incorporating the proposed global and country-specific mainstreaminess measures into the music recommendation process can notably improve accuracy of rating prediction.
Comparison of Drug-Eluting Balloon Followed by Bare Metal Stent with Drug-Eluting Stent for Treatment of de Novo Lesions: Randomized, Controlled, Single-Center Clinical Trial

The combined use of a drug-eluting balloon (DEB) and a bare metal stent (BMS) for the treatment of de novo non-small vessel coronary artery diseases (CAD) remains to be evaluated. We investigated the efficacy of a sequential treatment using a DEB together with a BMS implantation in comparison to a zotarolimus-eluting stent (ZES). This study was a prospective, randomized, open-label study. We designed it to demonstrate the non-inferiority of a sequential treatment using a DEB first followed by a BMS (DEB + BMS) compared with the use of a ZES. The primary endpoint was in-segment late loss (LL) at 9 months measured by quantitative coronary angiography (QCA). A total of 180 patients were enrolled in the study. The 9-month follow-up angiography was performed in 72 patients with DEB + BMS and 74 patients with ZES. When comparing the DEB + BMS results with the ZES ones, LL was 0.50 ± 0.46 mm in DEB + BMS patients vs. 0.21 ± 0.44 mm in ZES patients (P < 0.001). The mean difference of the LL was 0.31 mm, which was larger than the prespecified non-inferiority margin of 0.19 mm, and the 2-sided 95% confidence interval was 0.15–0.48. The clinical outcomes were not significantly different. In conclusion, the DEB + BMS strategy is inferior to the ZES one in terms of the LL result at 9 months. The DEB strategy for de novo coronary artery lesions needs to be improved for it to become an alternative treatment option. This was a clinical trial study and was registered at www.ClinicalTrials. gov (Identifier: NCT01539603; http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01539603).
To be or not to be...social: incorporating simple social features in mobile game customer lifetime value predictions

Mobile games make up the largest segment of the games industry, in terms of revenue as well as players. Hundreds of thousands of games are available with most being free to download and play. In freemium games, revenue is predominantly generated by users making in-game purchases. As only a small fraction of users make purchases, predicting these users and their Customer Lifetime Value are key challenges in Game Analytics and currently barely explored in academic research. Furthermore, while social factors have been shown to be essential for retention in games in general, the impact on retention and monetization in mobile games is unexplored. In this paper, the problem of defining social features in freemium casual mobile games is addressed through a case study with over 200,000 players. The study evaluates the influence of specific types of social interactions typical of casual mobile games, on predictions of premium users and Customer Lifetime Value by applying classifiers and regression models respectively. Results indicate that social activity does not correlate with the tendency to become a premium user, but that social activity increases over time in a cohort.
Sweet Taste Receptor Activation in the Gut Is of Limited Importance for Glucose-Stimulated GLP-1 and GIP Secretion

Glucose stimulates the secretion of the incretin hormones: glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP). It is debated whether the sweet taste receptor (STR) triggers this secretion. We investigated the role of STR activation for glucose-stimulated incretin secretion from an isolated perfused rat small intestine and whether selective STR activation by artificial sweeteners stimulates secretion. Intra-luminal administration of the STR agonists, acesulfame K (3.85% w/v), but not sucralose (1.25% w/v) and stevioside (2.5% w/v), stimulated GLP-1 secretion (acesulfame K: 31 ± 3 pmol/L vs. 21 ± 2 pmol/L, p < 0.05, n = 6). In contrast, intra-arterial administration of sucralose (10 mM) and stevioside (10 mM), but not acesulfame K, stimulated GLP-1 secretion (sucralose: 51 ± 6 pmol/L vs. 34 ± 4 pmol/L, p < 0.05; stevioside: 54 ± 6 pmol/L vs. 32 ± 2 pmol/L, p < 0.05, n = 6), while 0.1 mM and 1 mM sucralose did not affect the secretion. Luminal glucose (20% w/v) doubled GLP-1 and GIP secretion, but basolateral STR inhibition by gurmarin (2.5 µg/mL) or the inhibition of the transient receptor potential cation channel 5 (TRPM5) by triphenylphosphine oxide (TPPO) (100 µM) did not attenuate the responses. In conclusion, STR activation does not drive GIP/GLP-1 secretion itself, nor does it have a role for glucose-stimulated GLP-1 or GIP secretion.
WHO 2016 Classification of gliomas

Gliomas are the most frequent intrinsic tumours of the central nervous system and encompass two principle subgroups: diffuse gliomas and gliomas showing a more circumscribed growth pattern (‘nondiffuse gliomas’). In the revised fourth edition of the WHO Classification of CNS tumours published in 2016, classification of especially diffuse gliomas has fundamentally changed: for the first time, a large subset of these tumours is now defined based on presence/absence of IDH mutation and 1p/19q codeletion. Following this approach, the diagnosis of (anaplastic) oligoastrocytoma can be expected to largely disappear. Furthermore, in the WHO 2016 Classification gliomatosis cerebri is not an entity anymore but is now considered as a growth pattern. The most important changes in the very diverse group of ‘nondiffuse’ gliomas and neuronal‐glial tumours are the introduction of anaplastic pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma, of diffuse leptomeningeal glioneuronal tumour and of RELA fusion‐positive ependymoma as entities. In the last part of this review, after very briefly touching upon classification of neuronal, choroid plexus and pineal region tumours, some practical implications and challenges associated with the WHO 2016 Classification of gliomas are discussed.