Achieving Lightweight Federated Advertising with Self-Supervised Split Distillation

As an emerging secure learning paradigm in leveraging cross-agency private data, vertical federated learning (VFL) is expected to improve advertising models by enabling the joint learning of complementary user attributes privately owned by the advertiser and the publisher. However, there are two key challenges in applying it to advertising systems: a) the limited scale of labeled overlapping samples, and b) the high cost of real-time cross-agency serving. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised split distillation framework VFed-SSD to alleviate the two limitations. We identify that: i) there are massive unlabeled overlapped data available in advertising systems, and ii) we can keep a balance between model performance and inference cost by decomposing the federated model. Specifically, we develop a self-supervised task Matched Pair Detection (MPD) to exploit the vertically partitioned unlabeled data and propose the Split Knowledge Distillation (SplitKD) schema to avoid cross-agency serving. Empirical studies on three industrial datasets exhibit the effectiveness of our methods, with the median AUC over all datasets improved by 0.86% and 2.6% in the local deployment mode and the federated deployment mode respectively. Overall, our framework provides an efficient federation-enhanced solution for real-time display advertising with minimal deploying cost and significant performance lift.Comment: Accepted to the Trustworthy Federated Learning workshop of IJCAI2022 (FL-IJCAI22). 6 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables Old title: Semi-Supervised Cross-Silo Advertising with Partial Knowledge Transfe

Transplantation of Hypoxic-Preconditioned Bone Mesenchymal Stem Cells Retards Intervertebral Disc Degeneration via Enhancing Implanted Cell Survival and Migration in Rats

Objective. Special hypoxic and hypertonic microenvironment in intervertebral discs (IVDs) decreases the treatment effect of cell transplantation. We investigated the hypothesis that hypoxic preconditioning (HP) could improve the therapeutic effect of bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) to IVD degeneration. Methods. BMSCs from green fluorescent protein-transgenic rats were pretreated with cobalt chloride (CoCl2, 100 μM, 24 h) for hypoxic conditions in vitro. Apoptosis (related pathways of caspase-3 and bcl-2) and migration (related pathways of HIF-1α and CXCR4) were detected in BMSCs. In vivo, BMSCs and HP BMSCs (H-BMSCs) were injected into the rat model of IVD degeneration. The IVD height, survival, migration, and differentiation of transplanted BMSCs and matrix protein expression (collagen II, aggrecan, and MMP-13) were tested. Results. H-BMSCs could extensively decrease IVD degeneration by increasing IVD height and collagen II and aggrecan expressions when compared with BMSCs. Significantly, more GFP-positive BMSCs were observed in the nucleus pulposus and annulus fibrosus regions of IVD. HP could significantly decrease BMSC apoptosis (activating bcl-2 and inhibiting caspase-3) and improve BMSC migration (increasing HIF-1α and CXCR4) in vitro. Conclusion. HP could significantly enhance the capacity of BMSCs to repair DDD by increasing the survival and migration of implanted cells and increasing matrix protein expression

An Improved Energy Management Strategy of Diesel-Electric Hybrid Propulsion System Based on FNN-DP Strategy

Diesel-electric hybrid propulsion system (HPS) is widely applied for shunting locomotive due to the characteristics of flexible configuration, economic and environmental protection in the world. Energy management strategy (EMS) is an important design factor of HPS that can optimize the energy distribution of each power sources, improve system efficiency, and reduce fuel consumption. In this paper, the model of HPS for shunting locomotive and system operating profile are firstly carried out. Then the EMS consist of the conventional rule-based (RB) strategy rule, and a fuzzy neural network base on dynamic programming (FNN-DP) strategy are studied. Finally, the simulations were carried out with these EMSs in the system model at full operating conditions to derive the fuel consumption. The conclusion is that the theoretical optimal solution of DP provides reference and guidance for the fuzzy neural network strategy to improve the rules, and the fuel consumption of the FNN-DP strategy is 10.2% lower than the conventional RB strategy

Global response patterns of plant photosynthesis to nitrogen addition : a meta-analysis

A mechanistic understanding of plant photosynthetic response is needed to reliably predict changes in terrestrial carbon (C) gain under conditions of chronically elevated atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition. Here, using 2,683 observations from 240 journal articles, we conducted a global meta-analysis to reveal effects of N addition on 14 photosynthesis-related traits and affecting moderators. We found that across 320 terrestrial plant species, leaf N was enhanced comparably on mass basis (Nmass, +18.4%) and area basis (Narea, +14.3%), with no changes in specific leaf area or leaf mass per area. Total leaf area (TLA) was increased significantly, as indicated by the increases in total leaf biomass (+46.5%), leaf area per plant (+29.7%), and leaf area index (LAI, +24.4%). To a lesser extent than for TLA, N addition significantly enhanced leaf photosynthetic rate per area (Aarea, +12.6%), stomatal conductance (gs, +7.5%), and transpiration rate (E, +10.5%). The responses of Aarea were positively related with that of gs, with no changes in instantaneous water-use efficiency and only slight increases in long-term water-use efficiency (+2.5%) inferred from 13C composition. The responses of traits depended on biological, experimental, and environmental moderators. As experimental duration and N load increased, the responses of LAI and Aarea diminished while that of E increased significantly. The observed patterns of increases in both TLA and E indicate that N deposition will increase the amount of water used by plants. Taken together, N deposition will enhance gross photosynthetic C gain of the terrestrial plants while increasing their water loss to the atmosphere, but the effects on C gain might diminish over time and that on plant water use would be amplified if N deposition persists

Effects of milk-derived CGMP treatment on the expression levels of CD4, CD8, MAdCAM-1 and sIgA in the mouse intestinal mucosa.

<p>After treatment with milk-derived CGMP at the indicated doses, the intestinal tissues of the mice in the various groups were removed and the expression levels of immunological barrier factors were detected via immunohistochemical staining methods. Fig 4A, 4B, 4C and 4D show the immunohistochemical staining results for CD4, CD8, MAdCAM-1 and sIgA, respectively. Within the figure, * indicates a significant difference compared with the normal control group (P<0.05); ** indicates an extremely significant difference compared with the normal control group (P < 0.01); + indicates a significant difference compared with the model control group (P < 0.05); and ++ indicates an extremely significant difference compared with the model control group (P < 0.01).</p

Images of intestinal histopathological sections from mice in the various groups: H&E staining with magnification at 40x and 400x.

<p>One-centimeter sections of normal and obviously pathologically altered intestine were removed from mice in each group, and paraffin sections were prepared using routine procedures, including paraffin embedding, sectioning, H&E staining and mounting with neutral balsam. Histopathological changes were observed with an inverted microscope. A: normal control group; B:OXZ-induced UC model group; C1: CGMP group 1 (50 mg/kg bw•d); C2: CGMP group 2 (200 mg/kg bw•d); and D: SASP-treated group. The upper image contains “A, B, C1,C2 and D” were based on images of H&E-stained sections at 40x magnification and The lower image contains bold “A, B, C1,C2 and D” were based on images of H&E-stained sections at 400x magnification.</p

The effects of CGMP on mouse intestinal morphological and histological injury evaluation scores.

<p>Based on images of H&E-stained sections at 40x and 400x magnification, mouse intestinal morphological and histological injury were evaluated based on the status of crypt loss and the severity of erosion. The criteria were divided into 5 grades. Within the figure, * indicates a significant difference compared with the normal control group (P < 0.05); ** indicates an extremely significant difference compared with the normal control group (P < 0.01); + indicates a significant difference compared with the OXZ-model group (P < 0.05); and ++ indicates an extremely significant difference compared with the OXZ-model group (P < 0.01).</p

Effects of CGMP on mouse intestinal morphological injury index scoring.

<p>N: normal control group; M: OXZ-model group; S: SASP-treated group; C1: CGMP group 1 (50 mg/kg bw•d) and C2: CGMP group 2 (200 mg/kg bw•d). Each mouse in the five groups was anatomized: its abdominal cavity was opened, its intestines were separated and the stool was removed. Changes in intestinal morphology were observed, and pathologically altered sites were scored. The scoring criteria were divided into six grades according to the severity of injury in the intestinal mucosa. Grades above the 5th grade indicate two or more sites with serious ulceration and/or inflammation or one site where ulceration/inflammation was observed. When injured sections longer than 1 cm in the intestine on the vertical axis were observed, 1 scoring point was added; the highest scoring point was 10. Within the figure,* indicates a significant difference compared with the normal control group (P < 0.05); ** indicates an extremely significant difference compared with the normal control group (P < 0.01); + indicates a significant difference compared with the model control group (P < 0.05); and ++ indicates an extremely significant difference compared with the model control group (P < 0.01).</p