SiGeo: Sub-One-Shot NAS via Information Theory and Geometry of Loss Landscape

Neural Architecture Search (NAS) has become a widely used tool for automating neural network design. While one-shot NAS methods have successfully reduced computational requirements, they often require extensive training. On the other hand, zero-shot NAS utilizes training-free proxies to evaluate a candidate architecture's test performance but has two limitations: (1) inability to use the information gained as a network improves with training and (2) unreliable performance, particularly in complex domains like RecSys, due to the multi-modal data inputs and complex architecture configurations. To synthesize the benefits of both methods, we introduce a "sub-one-shot" paradigm that serves as a bridge between zero-shot and one-shot NAS. In sub-one-shot NAS, the supernet is trained using only a small subset of the training data, a phase we refer to as "warm-up." Within this framework, we present SiGeo, a proxy founded on a novel theoretical framework that connects the supernet warm-up with the efficacy of the proxy. Extensive experiments have shown that SiGeo, with the benefit of warm-up, consistently outperforms state-of-the-art NAS proxies on various established NAS benchmarks. When a supernet is warmed up, it can achieve comparable performance to weight-sharing one-shot NAS methods, but with a significant reduction ($\sim 60$\%) in computational costs.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

Biological Activities and Applications of Dioscorins, the Major Tuber Storage Proteins of Yam

AbstractYam tubers, a common tuber crop and an important traditional Chinese medicine in Taiwan, have many bioactive substances, including phenolic compounds, mucilage polysaccharides, steroidal saponins and proteins. Among the total soluble proteins, 80% of them are dioscorins. In the past two decades, many studies showed that dioscorins exhibited biological activities both in vitro and in vivo, including the enzymatic, antioxidant, antihypertensive, immunomodulatory, lectin activities and the protecting role on airway epithelial cells against allergens in vitro. Some of these activities are survived after chemical, heating process or enzymatic digestion. Despite of lacking the intact structural information and the detail action mechanisms in the cells, yam dioscorins are potential resources for developing as functional foods and interesting targets for food protein researchers

Planning and Implantation of NetFPGA Platform on Network Emulation Testbed

The concepts of cloud computing and Internet applications have expanded gradually and have become more and more important. Researchers need a new, high-speed network to build experimental environments for testing new network protocolswithout affecting existing traffic. In this paper, we describe a way to integrate NetFPGA platform, OpenFlow concept and NetFPGA reference designs into anetwork testbed to improve the packet processing speed and the dynamic adjustability for network emulation experiments. Furthermore, combined with Tunneling and VPLS, the proposed network testbed can be connected to distributed network, thus providing researchers a traffic-controllable and NIC-programmable experimental networking testbed in intra-communicating part

JCMT POL-2 and ALMA polarimetric observations of 6000-100 au scales in the protostar B335: linking magnetic field and gas kinematics in observations and MHD simulations

We present our analysis of the magnetic field structures from 6000 au to 100 au scales in the Class 0 protostar B335 inferred from our JCMT POL-2 observations and the ALMA archival polarimetric data. To interpret the observational results, we perform a series of (non-)ideal MHD simulations of the collapse of a rotating non-turbulent dense core, whose initial conditions are adopted to be the same as observed in B335, and generate synthetic polarization maps. The comparison of our JCMT and simulation results suggests that the magnetic field on a 6000 au scale in B335 is pinched and well aligned with the bipolar outflow along the east-west direction. Among all our simulations, the ALMA polarimetric results are best explained with weak magnetic field models having an initial mass-to-flux ratio of 9.6. However, we find that with the weak magnetic field, the rotational velocity on a 100 au scale and the disk size in our simulations are larger than the observational estimates by a factor of several. An independent comparison of our simulations and the gas kinematics in B335 observed with the SMA and ALMA favors strong magnetic field models with an initial mass-to-flux ratio smaller than 4.8. We discuss two possibilities resulting in the different magnetic field strengths inferred from the polarimetric and molecular-line observations, (1) overestimated rotational-to-gravitational energy in B335 and (2) additional contributions in the polarized intensity due to scattering on a 100 au scale.Comment: Accepted by Ap

Natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery: A transtracheal approach for the thoracic cavity in a live canine model

BackgroundThe present study aimed to evaluate the performance of transtracheal thoracic exploration and pericardial window creation in a canine survival model.MethodsTransthoracic exploration was performed in 14 dogs. Under general anesthesia, after an incision in the right lateral wall of the middle–lower portion of the trachea was made, a 9-mm metal tube was advanced into the thoracic cavity. For thoracic cavity exploration and pericardial window creation, a flexible bronchoscope was introduced through the metal tube into the thoracic cavity. After thoracoscopy, a Dumon stent (Novatech, Grasse, France) was used to cover the tracheal incision site and facilitate healing. Animals were evaluated by endoscopy 1 and 2 weeks later. Animals were humanely killed, and necropsy was performed 2 weeks after the transtracheal natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery.ResultsFourteen dogs underwent transtracheal thoracic exploration lasting for an average of 110 minutes (range, 80–150), with 3 perioperative deaths. At 2 weeks after pericardial window creation, endoscopy revealed normal healing of the tracheal incision sites in all 11 surviving animals. Necropsy on the 11 animals at 2 weeks showed 9 adhesions around the pericardial window and 5 adhesions around the tracheal incision region. No mediastinitis or abscesses could be identified.ConclusionsTranstracheal thoracic exploration is technically feasible. Increasing surgical experience together with improvement in endoscopic techniques will further facilitate the development of natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery for thoracic diseases

Sibling recurrence risk ratio analysis of the metabolic syndrome and its components over time

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to estimate both cross-sectional sibling recurrence risk ratio (λ(s)) and lifetime λ(s )for the metabolic syndrome and its individual components over time among sibships in the prospectively followed-up cohorts provided by the Genetic Analysis Workshop 13. Five measures included in the operational criteria of the metabolic syndrome by the Adult Treatment Panel III were examined. A method for estimating sibling recurrence risk with correction for complete ascertainment was used to estimate the numerator, and the prevalence in the whole cohort was used as the denominator of λ(s). RESULTS: Considerable variability in the λ(s )was found in terms of different time-points for the cross-sectional definition, the times of fulfilling the criterion for lifetime definition, and different components. Obesity and hyperglycemia had the highest cross-sectional λ(s )of the five components. Both components also had the largest slopes in the linear trend of the lifetime λ(s). However, the magnitudes of the lifetime λ(s )were similar to that of the mean cross-sectional λ(s), which were <2. The results of nonparametric linkage analysis showed only suggestive evidence of linkage between one marker and lifetime diagnosis of low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and metabolic syndrome, respectively. CONCLUSION: The λ(s )of the metabolic syndrome and its components varies substantially across time, and the λ(s )of lifetime diagnosis was not necessarily larger than that of a cross-sectional diagnosis. The magnitude of λ(s )does not predict well the maximum LOD score of linkage analysis