Counterfactuals and Causability in Explainable Artificial Intelligence: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications

There has been a growing interest in model-agnostic methods that can make deep learning models more transparent and explainable to a user. Some researchers recently argued that for a machine to achieve a certain degree of human-level explainability, this machine needs to provide human causally understandable explanations, also known as causability. A specific class of algorithms that have the potential to provide causability are counterfactuals. This paper presents an in-depth systematic review of the diverse existing body of literature on counterfactuals and causability for explainable artificial intelligence. We performed an LDA topic modelling analysis under a PRISMA framework to find the most relevant literature articles. This analysis resulted in a novel taxonomy that considers the grounding theories of the surveyed algorithms, together with their underlying properties and applications in real-world data. This research suggests that current model-agnostic counterfactual algorithms for explainable AI are not grounded on a causal theoretical formalism and, consequently, cannot promote causability to a human decision-maker. Our findings suggest that the explanations derived from major algorithms in the literature provide spurious correlations rather than cause/effects relationships, leading to sub-optimal, erroneous or even biased explanations. This paper also advances the literature with new directions and challenges on promoting causability in model-agnostic approaches for explainable artificial intelligence

Incarcerated Vaginal Pessary: A Rare Complication

SummaryObjectiveA patient with uterine prolapse (procidentia uteri) received a vaginal pessary, which became incarcerated in the vaginal wall.Case ReportA 70-year-old female patient had been treated for uterine prolapse by insertion of a ring-shaped silicone pessary for about 3 to 4 years. The patient neglected the pessary, which unfortunately became incarcerated in the vaginal wall; it was impossible to remove. Finally, the pessary was displaced after cutting it into two pieces under general anesthesia.ConclusionAfter having inserted a vaginal pessary, patients need to be instructed on its regular removal and cleaning to prevent complications such as infection, ulceration, and incarceration

A publicly verifiable quantum blind signature scheme without entanglement based on asymmetric cryptography

In recent years, several cryptographic scholars have proposed quantum blind signature schemes. However, their methods require the signatories and the inspectors to share common keys in advance, which makes them not only complicated in concept, but also suffering deniable problem. Moreover, due to the fact that not everyone can verify the blind signature, it needs to have a designated verifier. In view of Laurent, et al.’s argument that other than the assumption of the pre-image being collision-free, the one-way hash function is an attractive cryptographic component in the post-quantum era when designing a cryptosystem. Inspired by this, we propose a publicly verifiable quantum blind signature scheme based on the hash function. After security analyses, we confirm that our quantum blind signature not only is secure, but also have the needed properties. It includes anonymity, unforgeability, non-repudiation, blindness, public verifiability, and traceability. Hence, we conclude that this approach is better than the state-of-the-art, and is therefore more suitable for applications in real life, such as, mobile payments, quantum voting, or quantum government

Liquid biopsy genotyping in lung cancer: ready for clinical utility?

Liquid biopsy is a blood test that detects evidence of cancer cells or tumor DNA in the circulation. Despite complicated collection methods and the requirement for technique-dependent platforms, it has generated substantial interest due, in part, to its potential to detect driver oncogenes such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutants in lung cancer. This technology is advancing rapidly and is being incorporated into numerous EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) development programs. It appears ready for integration into clinical care. Recent studies have demonstrated that biological fluids such as saliva and urine can also be used for detecting EGFR mutant DNA through application other user-friendly techniques. This review focuses on the clinical application of liquid biopsies to lung cancer genotyping, including EGFR and other targets of genotype-directed therapy and compares multiple platforms used for liquid biopsy

Combustion Synthesis of Mullite/Metal Boride Composites

Formation of composite materials composed of mullite (3Al2O3×2SiO2) and transition metal borides (NbB2 and TaB2) was studied by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS). Starting materials included not only metal oxides (Nb2O5 and Ta2O5) and boron oxide (B2O3) as the sources of metallic elements and boron, but also Al and Si powders as the reducing agents. The evolution of mullite from in situ formed SiO2 and Al2O3 and synthesis of NbB2 and TaB2 were investigated. The effect of excess Si addition was studied on the combustion temperature, flame-front propagation velocity, and phase composition of the final product. For formation of the NbB2/mullite composites, the combustion velocity about 2.5 mm/s and reaction temperature around 1500 oC decreased slightly as the Si content increased. However, a considerable decrease in combustion front velocity from 2.74 to 1.43 mm/s and in reaction temperature from 1600 to 1250 oC was observed for the production of the TaB2/mullite composites. The XRD patterns of the final products confirmed the role of excess Si in the improvement of silicothermic reduction of B2O3 and subsequent evolution of NbB2, TaB2, and mullite. The EDS analysis indicated an atomic proportion close to that of 3Al2O3×2SiO2 for the mullite grains synthesized in this study

A Diffie-Hellman quantum session key establishment protocol without entanglement

In 2016 and 2017, Shi et al first proposed two protocols for the communication parties to establish a quantum session key. Both work by rotating the angle of one communicator’s private key on the other party\u27s quantum public key. In their approaches, the session key shared by each pair of communicators is fixed after the key generation phase. Thereafter, the key used in each communication does not change, but for security consideration, the session key should be changed in every time usage. In other words, those key agreement protocols do not satisfy the requirement of key security. In view of this, this paper develops a quantum session key establishment based on the Diffie-Hermann style key exchange to produce different quantum session keys in each communications. After analysis, we confirm that our method can resist various attacks and is therefore secure

A genome-wide scanning and fine mapping study of COGA data

A thorough genetic mapping study was performed to identify predisposing genes for alcoholism dependence using the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) data. The procedure comprised whole-genome linkage and confirmation analyses, single locus and haplotype fine mapping analyses, and gene × environment haplotype regression. Stratified analysis was considered to reduce the ethnic heterogeneity and simultaneously family-based and case-control study designs were applied to detect potential genetic signals. By using different methods and markers, we found high linkage signals at D1S225 (253.7 cM), D1S547 (279.2 cM), D2S1356 (64.6 cM), and D7S2846 (56.8 cM) with nonparametric linkage scores of 3.92, 4.10, 4.44, and 3.55, respectively. We also conducted haplotype and odds ratio analyses, where the response was the dichotomous status of alcohol dependence, explanatory variables were the inferred individual haplotypes and the three statistically significant covariates were age, gender, and max drink (the maximum number of drinks consumed in a 24-hr period). The final model identified important AD-related haplotypes within a candidate region of NRXN1 at 2p21 and a few others in the inter-gene regions. The relative magnitude of risks to the identified risky/protective haplotypes was elucidated

Temporomandibular Joint Disorders in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

BackgroundTemporomandibular joint disorders (TMD) are not uncommon in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, the extent of involvement and its clinical relevance have not been well characterized. This study evaluated the correlation between the severity of RA-related TMD and RA, as well as determined the potential predictors for early identification and management of TMD in RA patients.MethodsWe sequentially recruited 56 adult RA patients from our Arthritis Clinic. TMD and RA were surveyed, clinically by questionnaires and physical examinations, and radiologically by tomography in TMD and conventional radiography in RA. The patients were stratified into no, mild and severe TMD groups according to the physical and tomographic examinations. The correlation of the severity of TMD and RA were evaluated. The relative importance of relevant predictors of severe TMD was analyzed by a logistic regression model.ResultsPhysical and radiologic temporomandibular joint abnormalities were found to be highly prevalent (85.7% and 74.5%) in these patients, and the occurrence increased to as much as 92.9% when the 2 data sets were combined. More than half of the patients had severe TMD presenting with debilitating symptoms or with a significant degree of bony destruction. The severity of TMD was variably correlated with RA severity. The score of hand-joint space narrowing was found to be the most influential predictor of severe TMD by logistic regression analysis.ConclusionThere was a high prevalence of TMD in RA patients. The severity of TMD variably correlated with RA severity. Clinically, a high score of hand-joint space narrowing may serve as an early indicator of RA patients at risk of severe TMD. This may facilitate early management and prevent the functional impairment of the temporomandibular joint

NOVA, a Noncommutative-ring Based Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar Signature Scheme with Key-randomness Alignment

In this paper, we propose a noncommutative-ring based unbalanced oil and vinegar signature scheme with key-randomness alignment: NOVA (Noncommutative Oil and Vinegar with Alignment). Instead of fields or even commutative rings, we show that noncommutative rings can be used for algebraic cryptosystems. At the same or better level of security requirement, NOVA has a much smaller public key than UOV (Unbalanced Oil and Vinegar), which makes NOVA practical in most situations. We use Magma to actually implement and give a detailed security analysis against known major attacks