Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reward-predictive representations generalize across tasks in reinforcement learning

In computer science, reinforcement learning is a powerful framework with which artificial agents can learn to maximize their performance for any given Markov decision process (MDP). Advances over the last decade, in combination with deep neural networks, have enjoyed performance advantages over humans in many difficult task settings. However, such frameworks perform far less favorably when evaluated in their ability to generalize or transfer representations across different tasks. Existing algorithms that facilitate transfer typically are limited to cases in which the transition function or the optimal policy is portable to new contexts, but achieving “deep transfer” characteristic of human behavior has been elusive. Such transfer typically requires discovery of abstractions that permit analogical reuse of previously learned representations to superficially distinct tasks. Here, we demonstrate that abstractions that minimize error in predictions of reward outcomes generalize across tasks with different transition and reward functions. Such reward-predictive representations compress the state space of a task into a lower dimensional representation by combining states that are equivalent in terms of both the transition and reward functions. Because only state equivalences are considered, the resulting state representation is not tied to the transition and reward functions themselves and thus generalizes across tasks with different reward and transition functions. These results contrast with those using abstractions that myopically maximize reward in any given MDP and motivate further experiments in humans and animals to investigate if neural and cognitive systems involved in state representation perform abstractions that facilitate such equivalence relations. Author summary Humans are capable of transferring abstract knowledge from one task to another. For example, in a right-hand-drive country, a driver has to use the right arm to operate the shifter. A driver who learned how to drive in a right-hand-drive country can adapt to operating a left-hand-drive car and use the other arm for shifting instead of re-learning how to drive. Despite the fact that both tasks require different coordination of motor skills, both tasks are the same in an abstract sense: In both tasks, a car is operated and there is the same progression from 1st to 2nd gear and so on. We study distinct algorithms by which a reinforcement learning agent can discover state representations that encode knowledge about a particular task, and evaluate how well they can generalize. Through a sequence of simulation results, we show that state abstractions that minimize errors in prediction about future reward outcomes generalize across tasks, even those that superficially differ in both the goals (rewards) and the transitions from one state to the next. This work motivates biological studies to determine if distinct circuits are adapted to maximize reward vs. to discover useful state representations.
Care in the Community in Italy Twenty-five Years After the Psychiatric Reform

In recent years, several Italian and foreign authors have evaluated the state of mental health care in Italy as it has developed since the 1978 reform. These contributions complement an already wide array of publications on this same subject published in previous years. Indeed, this is widely considered a topical subject because of the radical methods Italy adopted in shifting from a hospitalbased to a community-based system. The aim of the present article is to provide a critical review of the Italian situation and contribute to its clarification. The article is based on studies published in recent years and on some events and their consequences, specifically, (a) the closing of all mental hospitals, and (b) the achievement of expected standards as stated in "Progetto Obiettivo Tutela della Salute Mentale 19982000" [1] [Mental Health Pian 1998-2000], the most recent report on the mental health program issued by the Ministry of Health. It should be noted that, in some cases, for example, residential and day-care facilities, these standards have even been surpassed.
Association of HIV status with sexual function in women aged 45–60 in England: results from two national surveys

ABSTRACT Increasing numbers of women living with HIV are reaching their midlife. We explore the association of HIV status with sexual function (SF) in women aged 45–60 using two national cross-sectional surveys: the third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (“Natsal-3”) and “PRIME”, a survey of women living with HIV attending HIV clinics across England. Both studies asked the same questions about SF that take account not only sexual difficulties but also the relationship context and overall level of satisfaction, which collectively allowed an overall SF score to be derived. We undertook analyses of sexually-active women aged 45–60 from Natsal-3 (N = 1228, presumed HIV-negative given the low estimated prevalence of HIV in Britain) and PRIME (N = 386 women living with HIV). Women living with HIV were compared to Natsal-3 participants using multivariable logistic regression (adjusting for key confounders identified a priori: ethnicity, ongoing relationship status, depression and number of chronic conditions) and propensity scoring. Relative to Natsal-3 participants, women living with HIV were more likely to: have low overall SF (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 3.75 [2.15–6.56]), report ≥1 sexual problem(s) lasting ≥3 months (AOR 2.44 [1.49–4.00]), and report almost all 8 sexual problems asked about (AORs all ≥2.30). The association between HIV status and low SF remained statistically significant when using propensity scoring (AOR 2.43 [1.68–3.51]). Among women living with HIV (only), low SF was more common in those who were postmenopausal vs. Premenopausal (55.6% vs. 40.4%). This study suggests a negative association between HIV status and sexual function in women aged 45–60. We recommend routine assessment of SF in women living with HIV.
A Single Light-Responsive Sizer Can Control Multiple-Fission Cycles in Chlamydomonas

Proliferating cells need to coordinate cell division and growth to maintain size homeostasis. Any systematic deviation from a balance between growth and division results in progressive changes of cell size over subsequent generations. While most eukaryotic cells execute binary division after a mass doubling, the photosynthetic green alga Chlamydomonas can grow more than eight-fold during daytime before undergoing rapid cycles of DNA replication, mitosis and cell division at night, which produce up to 16 daughter cells. Here, we propose a mechanistic model for multiple fission and size control in Chlamydomonas. The model comprises a light-sensitive and size-dependent biochemical toggle switch that acts as a sizer and guards transitions into and exit from a phase of cell-division cycle oscillations. We show that this simple ‘sizer-oscillator’ arrangement reproduces the experimentally observed features of multiple-fission cycles and the response of Chlamydomonas cells to different light-dark regimes. Our model also makes testable predictions about the dynamical properties of the biochemical network that controls these features and about the network’s makeup. Collectively, these results provide a new perspective on the concept of a ‘commitment point’ during the growth of Chlamydomonas cells and hint at an intriguing continuity of cell-size control in different eukaryotic lineages. Graphical abstract G1-sizer and S/M-oscillator can give rise to multiple-fission cycles in Chlamydomonas Light-responsive bistable switch may guard transition between G1 and S/M-cycles Illumination increases S/M-entry threshold, causing multiple-fission cycles Dark shift lowers S/M-entry threshold, allowing small cells to commit to fewer divisions
Soil Water and Growth of Rice and Weeds

In pot culture experiments in the greenhouse, rice [Oryza sativa L. ‘Nova 66’], red rice [O. sativa L. ], barnyardgrass [Echinochola crus-galli (L.) Beauv. ], broadleaf signal-grass [Brachiaria platyphylla (Griseb.) Nash], northern jointvetch [Aeschynomene virginica (L.) B.S.P.], and hemp sesbania [Sesbania exaltata (Raf.) Cory] were seeded 1.3, 2.5, 5.1, and 10.2 cm deep in Crowley silt loam which was held at field capacity (24% moisture), saturation (34% moisture), or submerged 1.3 or 5.1 cm. At field capacity and saturation all species seeded 1.3, 2.5, and 5.1 cm deep emerged and grew well; seeding the plants 10.2 cm deep reduced emergence and growth. Submergence of the soil controlled all weeds effectively but reduced emergence and growth of dry-seeded rice.
A prognostic nomogram for patients with resected fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background Fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma (FLHC) is a unique entity compared to conventional hepatocellular carcinoma. The aim of this study was to examine post-resection outcomes and prognostic indicators for survival in this group of FLHC patients. Methods A retrospective analysis of the National Cancer Database (NCDB) for patients with FLHC who underwent resection from 2004 to 2014 was performed. Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were used to identify factors associated with overall survival, and a prognostic nomogram was generated. Results There were 197 patients identified, 171 (86.8%) of whom had long-term follow-up data. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed using patient and tumor demographics with the outcome variable of overall survival. On multivariate analysis, age [hazard ratio (HR) 1.03, P=0.003], vascular invasion (HR 1.75, P=0.05), tumor size >7 cm (HR 2.18, P=0.044), multifocal disease (HR 3.34, P=0.002), and node positive (pN+) disease (HR 2.75, P=0.003) were all negative predictors of overall survival. A prognostic nomogram was generated using these factors with a c-statistic superior to that of American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging (0.710 vs. 0.654). Conclusions Independent predictors of decreased overall survival in patients with FLHC include age, vascular invasion, tumor size >7 cm, multifocal disease, and pN+ disease. This is the first study to develop a nomogram exclusively for FLHC that may predict survival in future studies.
Serum Concentrations of Osteogenesis/Osteolysis-Related Factors and Micro-RNA Expression in ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Background Atherosclerosis and bone metabolism share similar molecular and cellular mechanisms. This study aims to evaluate (1) serum concentration of osteogenesis/osteolysis factors panel (Dickkopf-related protein 1 (DKK-1), TNF-α, N-terminal atrial natriuretic peptide (NT-proANP), thrombospondin-2 (TSP-2), osteoprotegerin (OPG), osteocalcin (OCN), osteopontin (OPN), fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF-23), soluble receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappaB ligand (sRANKL), tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9)), (2) serum expression levels of micro-RNA- (miR-) 24-1 and miR-6802, and (3) assess their correlation with myocardial injury and LV remodeling and function in the acute phase of STEMI and after 3 months. Methods Study enrolled 25 STEMI patients (mean age 55.4 ± 8.96 years). Blood samples were collected 4 days and 3 months after myocardial infarction. Serum concentrations of osteogenesis/osteolysis factors were measured using the Luminex assay. Analysis of miR-24-1, and miR-6802 expression was performed with qPCR. LV function and remodeling were assessed by MRI during index hospitalization and 3 months later. Results There were no significant differences in serum levels of osteogenesis/osteolysis factors and expression of miR-24-1 and miR-6802 between the acute phase and 3-month follow-up. The levels were similar in patients with at least ≥5% improvement of LVEF (n = 10) and those without improvement. There was a negative correlation between the OPG serum level and LVEF during the acute phase of myocardial infarction. Conclusions In STEMI patients, serum concentrations of osteogenesis/osteolysis factors, as well as miR-24-1 and miR-6802 expression, do not change significantly within the 3-month follow-up and are not correlated with LV remodeling and function.
Performance of the American Thyroid Association Risk Classification in a Single Center Cohort of Pediatric Patients with Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: A Retrospective Study

Introduction Differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) is the most common endocrine malignancy in children. Retrospective studies show conflicting results regarding predictors of persistent and recurrent disease after initial therapy. In 2015, the American Thyroid Association (ATA) proposed a clinical classification system to identify pediatric thyroid cancer patients at risk for persistent/recurrent disease. Material and Methods We retrospectively included all patients in our registry diagnosed with papillary DTC at ≤ 18 years of age. We analyzed the prognostic performance of the ATA classification and other risk factors for predicting response to initial treatment and final outcome in pediatric DTC. Results We included 41 patients, 34 females and 7 males, diagnosed with papillary DTC at a mean (SD) age of 16.2 (1.8) years. Based on the ATA pediatric risk classification, patients were categorized as low (61%), intermediate (10%), or high risk (29%). The median follow-up period was 7.3 (1-41) years. After initial treatment, disease free status was achieved in 92%, 50%, and 42% of the low, intermediate, and high risk groups, respectively (P <0.01). At the last visit, persistent disease was present in 12%, 25%, and 33% (P=0.27). Assessing other risk factors, only the presence of distant metastases at diagnosis resulted in increased presence of persistent disease at last follow-up (P=0.03). Conclusion This study supports the clinical relevance of the ATA risk classification for predicting the response to initial treatment. There was no clear prediction of long-term outcome, but this may be due to limited power caused by the small number of patients.
The CC′ loop of IgV domain containing immune checkpoint receptors: From a bystander to an active determinant of receptor:ligand binding

Antibodies targeting negative regulators of immune checkpoints have shown unprecedented and durable response against variety of malignancies. While the concept of blocking the negative regulators of immune checkpoints using mAbs appears to be an outstanding approach, their limited effect and several drawbacks such as resistance, poor solid tumor penetration and so on, calls for the rational design of next generation of therapeutics. Soluble isoforms of negative regulators of immune checkpoints are expressed naturally and are shown to regulate the immune response, suggesting the soluble version of these molecules and affinity-modified versions of these self-molecules could be effective lead molecules for immunotherapy. To get a better insight on hotspot regions for modification, we have analysed structures of available immune receptor:ligand complexes containing IgV domains. Interestingly, this analysis reveals that the CC′ loop of IgV domain, a loop which is distinct from CDRs which are generally utilized by antibodies to recognize antigens, plays a pivotal role in affinity modulation. Here, we present several examples of cognate partner specific conformational variation observed in CC′ loop of several checkpoint receptor:ligand complexes. In addition, in silico swapping of CC′ loop targeting TIGIT:Nectin-2/PVR pathway corroborated well with biophysically determined affinity values for these complexes. Thus, CC′ loop appears to be a hotspot for affinity modification without affecting the specificity to their cognate receptors, an important requirement to avoid unintended interaction of these modified molecules with undesired targets.
Clinical Observation of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation

Objective Discuss Treatment and Clinical effect of Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.Methods Select our hospital from June 2007 to June 2008 80 patients admitted to frequent episodes of atrial fibrillation were enrolled,Randomly divided into two groups and the control group,The control group with conventional therapy,Observation group were based on the use of simvastatin treatment,1 year follow-up,Two groups were compared C-reactive protein(CRP) levels、Recurrence rate and adverse effects.Results The patients in the CRP level was significantly better than the control group improved,P0.05;Two groups of patients had no adverse reaction,The recurrence rate was the observation group 20.0%(8 / 40) was significantly lower than the control group 42.5%(17/40),P 0.05. Conclusion Simvastatin inhibits inflammatory response,Reduce the recurrence of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation,Worthy of clinical.
A comparative analysis of survival in patients with non-small cell lung cancer with brain metastases receiving intracranial radiation with and without immunotherapy.

9025 Background: Many patients diagnosed with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) will develop intracranial metastasis, contributing significantly to morbidity and mortality. Immunotherapy (IMT) has emerged as the standard of care in select cases of metastatic NSCLC, though data investigating the survival impact of IMT and radiation (XRT) in these patients is limited. To characterize the survival impact of intracranial XRT and IMT in NSCLC patients with brain metastasis, we analyzed the National Cancer Database (NCDB). Methods: We queried the NCDB for patients with metastatic NSCLC having brain metastasis receiving intracranial XRT ± IMT. Univariable and multivariable analyses identified characteristics predictive of overall survival. Cox proportional hazard ratios with propensity matching mitigated indication bias between the two arms. Results: 13,998 NSCLC patients who received IMT (n = 545) or did not receive IMT (n = 13,545) were eligible for analysis. Univariable analysis demonstrated a median overall survival of 13.1 months (95% CI: 11.8-15.0) vs. 9.7 months (95% CI: 9.5-9.9) (p < 0.0001) and 3-year overall survival of 17% vs. 12% [p < 0.0001; HR: 0.77 (0.71-0.84)] in patients receiving and not receiving IMT respectively. Patients with N3 disease and those diagnosed between 2012 and 2014 were more likely to have received IMT. Receipt of IMT remained an independent predictor of increased survival on propensity score matched multivariable comparison (p = 0.0002). Conclusions: Receipt of IMT was an independent predictor of increased overall survival in patients with NSCLC having intracranial metastasis. Randomized, prospective studies are needed to further validate these findings. [Table: see text]
COSINE: Compressive Network Embedding on Large-Scale Information Networks

There is recently a surge in approaches that learn low-dimensional embeddings of nodes in networks. However, for large-scale real-world networks, it’s inefficient for existing approaches to store amounts of parameters in memory and update them edge by edge. With the knowledge that nodes having similar neighborhoods will be close to each other in the embedding space, we propose COSINE (COmpresSIve Network Embedding) algorithm, which reduces the memory footprint and accelerates the training process by parameter sharing among similar nodes. COSINE applies graph partitioning algorithms to networks and builds parameter sharing dependency of nodes based on the results of partitioning. In this way, COSINE injects prior knowledge about high-order structural information into models, which makes network embedding more efficient and effective. COSINE can be applied to any embedding lookup method and learn high-quality embeddings with limited memory and less training time. We conduct experiments on multi-label classification and link prediction, where baselines and our model have the same memory usage. Experimental results show that COSINE improves baselines by up to 23 percent on classification and 25 percent on link prediction. Moreover, the training time of all representation learning methods using COSINE decreases by 30 to 70 percent.
Quicker ADC : Unlocking the Hidden Potential of Product Quantization With SIMD

Efficient Nearest Neighbor (NN) search in high-dimensional spaces is a foundation of many multimedia retrieval systems. A common approach is to rely on Product Quantization, which allows the storage of large vector databases in memory and efficient distance computations. Yet, implementations of nearest neighbor search with Product Quantization have their performance limited by the many memory accesses they perform. Following this observation, André et al. proposed Quick ADC with up to <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$6{\times }$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mn>6</mml:mn><mml:mo>×</mml:mo></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="lescouarnec-ieq1-2952606.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> faster implementations of PQ <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${m}{\times }{4}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>m</mml:mi><mml:mo>×</mml:mo><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="lescouarnec-ieq2-2952606.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> product quantizers (PQ) leveraging specific SIMD instructions. Quicker ADC is a generalization of Quick ADC not limited to PQ <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${m}{\times }{4}$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:mrow><mml:mi>m</mml:mi><mml:mo>×</mml:mo><mml:mn>4</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="lescouarnec-ieq3-2952606.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> codes and supporting AVX-512, the latest revision of SIMD instruction set. In doing so, Quicker ADC faces the challenge of using efficiently 5,6 and 7-bit shuffles that do not align to computer bytes or words. To this end, we introduce (i) <italic>irregular product quantizers</italic> combining sub-quantizers of different granularity and (ii) <italic>split tables</italic> allowing lookup tables larger than registers. We evaluate Quicker ADC with multiple indexes including Inverted Multi-Indexes and IVF HNSW and show that it outperforms the reference optimized implementations (i.e., FAISS and polysemous codes) for numerous configurations. Finally, we release an open-source fork of FAISS enhanced with Quicker ADC.
ChamNet: Towards Efficient Network Design Through Platform-Aware Model Adaptation

This paper proposes an efficient neural network (NN) architecture design methodology called Chameleon that honors given resource constraints. Instead of developing new building blocks or using computationally-intensive reinforcement learning algorithms, our approach leverages existing efficient network building blocks and focuses on exploiting hardware traits and adapting computation resources to fit target latency and/or energy constraints. We formulate platform-aware NN architecture search in an optimization framework and propose a novel algorithm to search for optimal architectures aided by efficient accuracy and resource (latency and/or energy) predictors. At the core of our algorithm lies an accuracy predictor built atop Gaussian Process with Bayesian optimization for iterative sampling. With a one-time building cost for the predictors, our algorithm produces state-of-the-art model architectures on different platforms under given constraints in just minutes. Our results show that adapting computation resources to building blocks is critical to model performance. Without the addition of any special features, our models achieve significant accuracy improvements relative to state-of-the-art handcrafted and automatically designed architectures. We achieve 73.8% and 75.3% top-1 accuracy on ImageNet at 20ms latency on a mobile CPU and DSP. At reduced latency, our models achieve up to 8.2% (4.8%) and 6.7% (9.3%) absolute top-1 accuracy improvements compared to MobileNetV2 and MnasNet, respectively, on a mobile CPU (DSP), and 2.7% (4.6%) and 5.6% (2.6%) accuracy gains over ResNet-101 and ResNet-152, respectively, on an Nvidia GPU (Intel CPU).