Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detecting Interference in A/B Testing with Increasing Allocation

In the past decade, the technology industry has adopted online randomized controlled experiments (a.k.a. A/B testing) to guide product development and make business decisions. In practice, A/B tests are often implemented with increasing treatment allocation: the new treatment is gradually released to an increasing number of units through a sequence of randomized experiments. In scenarios such as experimenting in a social network setting or in a bipartite online marketplace, interference among units may exist, which can harm the validity of simple inference procedures. In this work, we introduce a widely applicable procedure to test for interference in A/B testing with increasing allocation. Our procedure can be implemented on top of an existing A/B testing platform with a separate flow and does not require a priori a specific interference mechanism. In particular, we introduce two permutation tests that are valid under different assumptions. Firstly, we introduce a general statistical test for interference requiring no additional assumption. Secondly, we introduce a testing procedure that is valid under a time fixed effect assumption. The testing procedure is of very low computational complexity, it is powerful, and it formalizes a heuristic algorithm implemented already in industry. We demonstrate the performance of the proposed testing procedure through simulations on synthetic data. Finally, we discuss one application at LinkedIn, where a screening step is implemented to detect potential interference in all their marketplace experiments with the proposed methods in the paper.
Prediction of Early Recurrence of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Patients with Cirrhosis Who Had Received Deceased Donor Liver Transplantation: A Multicenter Study

Background Early recurrence after liver transplantation (LT) is still a clinical problem. This multicenter study evaluated the Milan, Hangzhou, and AFP model-based criteria for prediction of early recurrence of HCC in patients with cirrhosis who had undergone LT. Material/Methods From the China Liver Transplant Registry (CLTR) database, we analyzed data of 589 HCC patients who had undergone LT between Jan 2015 and Jan 2019. Imaging data and AFP levels were evaluated immediately before LT. Recurrence and overall survival rates at 2 years were tested using the Kaplan-Meier estimate. The Milan criteria, Hangzhou criteria, and AFP model-based criteria were evaluated. Results We found that 62.0%, 91.2%, and 67.6% of patients were within the Milan criteria, Hangzhou criteria, and AFP model-based criteria, respectively. The 2-year recurrence rate was 8.9%, 15.8%, and 11.8% with corresponding overall survival of 85.3%, 82.7%, and 86.5%, respectively. The 2-year recurrence rate was different in patients fulfilling and exceeding the AFP model-based criteria among patients who met either the Milan criteria (7.9% vs. 18.8%, HR=3.83, p=0.006) or Hangzhou criteria (12.0% vs. 27.6%, HR=2.95, p<0.001). However, the 2-year recurrence rate was not significantly different among patients who were beyond either the Milan or Hangzhou criteria. Conclusions For the prediction of early recurrence of HCC in patients with cirrhosis after liver transplantation, Milan criteria, Hangzhou criteria, and AFP model-based criteria are effective predictive tools for stratification of patients into low- and high-risk groups of recurrence with different prognoses. The AFP model-based criteria can identify a subgroup of patients with high risk of recurrence among patients who met either Milan or Hangzhou criteria.
Adaptive Contrastive Learning on Multimodal Transformer for Review Helpfulness Prediction

Modern Review Helpfulness Prediction systems are dependent upon multiple modalities, typically texts and images. Unfortunately, those contemporary approaches pay scarce attention to polish representations of cross-modal relations and tend to suffer from inferior optimization. This might cause harm to model’s predictions in numerous cases. To overcome the aforementioned issues, we propose Multi-modal Contrastive Learning for Multimodal Review Helpfulness Prediction (MRHP) problem, concentrating on mutual information between input modalities to explicitly elaborate cross-modal relations. In addition, we introduce Adaptive Weighting scheme for our contrastive learning approach in order to increase flexibility in optimization. Lastly, we propose Multimodal Interaction module to address the unalignment nature of multimodal data, thereby assisting the model in producing more reasonable multimodal representations. Experimental results show that our method outperforms prior baselines and achieves state-of-the-art results on two publicly available benchmark datasets for MRHP problem.
The uPAR System as a Potential Therapeutic Target in the Diseased Eye

Dysregulation of vascular networks is characteristic of eye diseases associated with retinal cell degeneration and visual loss. Visual impairment is also the consequence of photoreceptor degeneration in inherited eye diseases with a major inflammatory component, but without angiogenic profile. Among the pathways with high impact on vascular/degenerative diseases of the eye, a central role is played by a system formed by the ligand urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and its receptor uPAR. The uPAR system, although extensively investigated in tumors, still remains a key issue in vascular diseases of the eye and even less studied in inherited retinal pathologies such as retinitis pigmantosa (RP). Its spectrum of action has been extended far beyond a classical pro-angiogenic function and has emerged as a central actor in inflammation. Preclinical studies in more prevalent eye diseases characterized by neovascular formation, as in retinopathy of prematurity, wet macular degeneration and rubeosis iridis or vasopermeability excess as in diabetic retinopathy, suggest a critical role of increased uPAR signaling indicating the potentiality of its modulation to counteract neovessel formation and microvascular dysfunction. The additional observation that the uPAR system plays a major role in RP by limiting the inflammatory cascade triggered by rod degeneration rises further questions about its role in the diseased eye.
Therapy-related stress in parents of children with a physical disability: a specific concept within the construct of parental stress

Abstract Purpose The aim of this article is to conceptualise the phenomenon of therapy-related parental stress in parents of children with a physical disability. Methods Three models related to parental stress were reviewed, i.e., general parental stress, burden of caregiving in parents of children with physical disabilities, and experiences of these parents with their child’s therapy. Results The proposed definition of therapy-related parental stress is “the subjective stress and subsequent changes of functioning and health experienced by a parent of a child with a physical disability in response to paramedical therapies (i.e., physical, occupational, and/or speech and language therapy)”. A theoretical model is proposed to describe the process of therapy-related parental stress. Available questionnaires will most likely not be valid and responsive to capture the (changes in) stress parents experience related to therapy their child receives. Conclusions This article provides a first definition of therapy-related parental stress and a theoretical model to visualise the processes with regard to this topic. Empirical testing of the presented components and their coherence is needed to confirm or improve the model. A questionnaire that specifically measures the concept of therapy-related parental stress is needed, along with evaluating therapy-related parental stress in clinical practice and research. Indications for rehabilitation It is imperative to recognise paramedical therapies (i.e., physical, occupational, and speech and language therapy) as a potential stressor for parents of children with a physical disability, both in paediatric rehabilitation practice and research. A definition and theoretical model of therapy-related parental stress is proposed and the need for measures to evaluate this phenomenon is argued. The authors provide a starting point for the evidence base of the concept of therapy-related parental stress.
The Effects of Different Dynamic Culture Systems on Cell Proliferation and Osteogenic Differentiation in Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells

The culture environment plays an important role for stem cells’ cultivation. Static or dynamic culture preserve differential potentials to affect human mesenchymal stem cells’ (hMSCs) proliferation and differentiation. In this study, hMSCs were seeded on fiber disks and cultured in a bidirectional-flow bioreactor or spinner-flask bioreactor with a supplement of osteogenic medium. The hMSCs’ proliferation, osteogenic differentiation, and extracellular matrix deposition of mineralization were demonstrated. The results showed that the spinner flask improved cell viability at the first two weeks while the bidirectional-flow reactor increased the cell proliferation of hMSCs through the four-week culture period. Despite the flow reactor having a higher cell number, a lower lactose/glucose ratio was noted, revealing that the bidirectional-flow bioreactor provides better oxygen accessibility to the cultured cells/disk construct. The changes of calcium ions in the medium, the depositions of Ca2+ in the cells/disk constructs, and alkaline phosphate/osteocalcin activities showed the static culture of hMSCs caused cells to mineralize faster than the other two bioreactors but without cell proliferation. Otherwise, cells were distributed uniformly with abundant extracellular matrix productions using the flow reactor. This reveals that the static and dynamic cultivations regulated the osteogenic process differently in hMSCs. The bidirectional-flow bioreactor can be used in the mass production and cultivation of hMSCs for applications in bone regenerative medicine.
Control of exercise hyperpnoea: Contributions from thin‐fibre skeletal muscle afferents

What is the topic of this review? In this review, we examine the evidence for control mechanisms underlying exercise hyperpnoea, giving attention to the feedback from thin‐fibre skeletal muscle afferents, and highlight the frequently conflicting findings and difficulties encountered by researchers using a variety of experimental models. What advances does it highlight? There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the role of skeletal muscle afferent involvement, not only as a mechanism of healthy exercise hyperpnoea but also in the manifestation of breathlessness and exercise intolerance in chronic disease.
Deep Learning-Based Picture-Wise Just Noticeable Distortion Prediction Model for Image Compression

Picture Wise Just Noticeable Difference (PW-JND), which accounts for the minimum difference of a picture that human visual system can perceive, can be widely used in perception-oriented image and video processing. However, the conventional Just Noticeable Difference (JND) models calculate the JND threshold for each pixel or sub-band separately, which may not reflect the total masking effect of a picture accurately. In this paper, we propose a deep learning based PW-JND prediction model for image compression. Firstly, we formulate the task of predicting PW-JND as a multi-class classification problem, and propose a framework to transform the multi-class classification problem to a binary classification problem solved by just one binary classifier. Secondly, we construct a deep learning based binary classifier named perceptually lossy/lossless predictor which can predict whether an image is perceptually lossy to another or not. Finally, we propose a sliding window based search strategy to predict PW-JND based on the prediction results of the perceptually lossy/lossless predictor. Experimental results show that the mean accuracy of the perceptually lossy/lossless predictor reaches 92%, and the absolute prediction error of the proposed PW-JND model is 0.79 dB on average, which show the superiority of the proposed PW-JND model to the conventional JND models.
Synthesis of Daidzein Glycosides, α-Tocopherol Glycosides, Hesperetin Glycosides by Bioconversion and Their Potential for Anti-Allergic Functional-Foods and Cosmetics

Daidzein is a common isoflavone, having multiple biological effects such as anti-inflammation, anti-allergy, and anti-aging. α-Tocopherol is the tocopherol isoform with the highest vitamin E activity including anti-allergic activity and anti-cancer activity. Hesperetin is a flavone, which shows potent anti-inflammatory effects. These compounds have shortcomings, i.e., water-insolubility and poor absorption after oral administration. The glycosylation of bioactive compounds can enhance their water-solubility, physicochemical stability, intestinal absorption, and biological half-life, and improve their bio- and pharmacological properties. They were transformed by cultured Nicotiana tabacum cells to 7-β-glucoside and 7-β-gentiobioside of daidzein, and 3′- and 7-β-glucosides, 3′,7-β-diglucoside, and 7-β-gentiobioside of hesperetin. Daidzein and α-tocopherol were glycosylated by galactosylation with β-glucosidase to give 4′- and 7-β-galactosides of daidzein, which were new compounds, and α-tocopherol 6-β-galactoside. These nine glycosides showed higher anti-allergic activity, i.e., inhibitory activity toward histamine release from rat peritoneal mast cells, than their respective aglycones. In addition, these glycosides showed higher tyrosinase inhibitory activity than the corresponding aglycones. Glycosylation of daidzein, α-tocopherol, and hesperetin greatly improved their biological activities.
Low cytomolecular diversification in the genus Stylosanthes Sw. (Papilionoideae, Leguminosae)

Abstract Stylosanthes (Papilionoideae, Leguminosae) is a predominantly Neotropical genus with ~48 species that include worldwide important forage species. This study presents the chromosome number and morphology of eight species of the genus Stylosanthes (S. acuminata, S. gracilis, S. grandifolia, S. guianensis, S. hippocampoides, S. pilosa, S. macrocephala, and S. ruellioides). In addition, staining with CMA and DAPI, in situ hybridization with 5S and 35S rDNA probes, and estimation of DNA content were performed. The interpretation of Stylosanthes chromosome diversification was anchored by a comparison with the sister genus Arachis and a dated molecular phylogeny based on nuclear and plastid loci. Stylosanthes species showed 2n = 20, with low cytomolecular diversification regarding 5S rDNA, 35S rDNA, and genome size. Arachis has a more ancient diversification (~7 Mya in the Pliocene) than the relatively recent Stylosanthes (~2 Mya in the Pleistocene), and it seems more diverse than its sister lineage. Our data support the idea that the cytomolecular stability of Stylosanthes in relation to Arachis could be a result of its recent origin. The recent diversification of Stylosanthes could also be related to the low morphological differentiation among species, and to the recurrent formation of allopolyploid complexes.
Pioglitazone improves porcine oocyte maturation and subsequent parthenogenetic embryo development in vitro by increasing lipid metabolism

Optimization of culture conditions is important to improve oocyte maturation and subsequent embryo development. In particular, this study analyzed the effects of increasing concentrations of PIO in the maturation medium on spindle formation and chromosome alignment, glutathione, and intracellular ROS levels and expression of selected genes related to maternal markers, apoptosis, and lipid metabolism. The percentage of oocytes displaying normal spindle formation and chromosome alignment was higher in the 1 µM PIO (1 PIO)‐treated group than in the control group. The glutathione level was significantly higher in the 1 PIO‐treated group than in the control group, while the reactive oxygen species level did not differ. Expression of maternal marker (MOS and GDF9), antiapoptotic (BIRC5), and lipid metabolism‐related (ACADS, CPT2, SREBF1, and PPARG) genes was higher in the 1 PIO‐treated group than in the control group, while expression of a proapoptotic gene (CASP3) was lower. The blastocyst formation rate and the percentage of blastocysts that reached at least the hatching stage on Days 6 and 7, and the percentage of blastocysts containing more than 128 cells were significantly higher in the 1 PIO‐treated group than in the control group. These results indicate that PIO treatment during in vitro maturation improves porcine oocyte maturation and subsequent parthenogenetic embryo development mainly by enhancing lipid metabolism and antioxidant defense in oocytes.
Sabotage at the Powerhouse? Unraveling the Molecular Target of 2-Isopropylbenzaldehyde Thiosemicarbazone, a Specific Inhibitor of Aflatoxin Biosynthesis and Sclerotia Development in Aspergillus flavus, Using Yeast as a Model System

Amongst the various approaches to contain aflatoxin contamination of feed and food commodities, the use of inhibitors of fungal growth and/or toxin biosynthesis is showing great promise for the implementation or the replacement of conventional pesticide-based strategies. Several inhibition mechanisms were found taking place at different levels in the biology of the aflatoxin-producing fungal species such as Aspergillus flavus: compounds that influence aflatoxin production may block the biosynthetic pathway through the direct control of genes belonging to the aflatoxin gene cluster, or interfere with one or more of the several steps involved in the aflatoxin metabolism upstream. Recent findings pointed to mitochondrial functionality as one of the potential targets of some aflatoxin inhibitors. Additionally, we have recently reported that the effect of a compound belonging to the class of thiosemicarbazones might be related to the energy generation/carbon flow and redox homeostasis control by the fungal cell. Here, we report our investigation about a putative molecular target of the 3-isopropylbenzaldehyde thiosemicarbazone (mHtcum), using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as model system, to demonstrate how the compound can actually interfere with the mitochondrial respiratory chain.
Keeping the Centromere under Control: A Promising Role for DNA Methylation

In order to maintain cell and organism homeostasis, the genetic material has to be faithfully and equally inherited through cell divisions while preserving its integrity. Centromeres play an essential task in this process; they are special sites on chromosomes where kinetochores form on repetitive DNA sequences to enable accurate chromosome segregation. Recent evidence suggests that centromeric DNA sequences, and epigenetic regulation of centromeres, have important roles in centromere physiology. In particular, DNA methylation is abundant at the centromere, and aberrant DNA methylation, observed in certain tumors, has been correlated to aneuploidy and genomic instability. In this review, we evaluate past and current insights on the relationship between centromere function and the DNA methylation pattern of its underlying sequences.
Networked Federated Learning

—We develop the theory and algorithmic toolbox for networked federated learning in decentralized collections of local datasets with an intrinsic network structure. This network structure arises from domain-speciﬁc notions of similarity between local datasets. Different notions of similarity are induced by spatio-temporal proximity, statistical dependencies or functional relations. Our main conceptual contribution is to formulate networked federated learning using a generalized total variation minimization. This formulation uniﬁes and considerably extends existing federated multi-task learning methods. It is highly ﬂexible and can be combined with a broad range of parametric models including Lasso or deep neural networks. Our main algorithmic contribution is a novel networked federated learning algorithm which is well suited for distributed computing environments such as edge computing over wireless networks. This algorithm is robust against inexact computations arising from limited computational resources including processing time or bandwidth. For local models resulting in convex problems, we derive precise conditions on the local models and their network structure such that our algorithm learns nearly optimal local models. Our analysis reveals an interesting interplay between the convex geometry of local models and the (cluster-) geometry of their network structure.
A Concise Review on the Molecular Structure and Function Relationship of β-Glucan

β-glucan is a non-starch soluble polysaccharide widely present in yeast, mushrooms, bacteria, algae, barley, and oat. β-Glucan is regarded as a functional food ingredient due to its various health benefits. The high molecular weight (Mw) and high viscosity of β-glucan are responsible for its hypocholesterolemic and hypoglycemic properties. Thus, β-glucan is also used in the food industry for the production of functional food products. The inherent gel-forming property and high viscosity of β-glucan lead to the production of low-fat foods with improved textural properties. Various studies have reported the relationship between the molecular structure of β-glucan and its functionality. The structural characteristics of β-glucan, including specific glycosidic linkages, monosaccharide compositions, Mw, and chain conformation, were reported to affect its physiochemical and biological properties. Researchers have also reported some chemical, physical, and enzymatic treatments can successfully alter the molecular structure and functionalities of β-glucan. This review article attempts to review the available literature on the relationship of the molecular structure of β-glucan with its functionalities, and future perspectives in this area.