226 research outputs found
Few-Shot Learning with a Strong Teacher
Few-shot learning (FSL) aims to train a strong classifier using limited
labeled examples. Many existing works take the meta-learning approach, sampling
few-shot tasks in turn and optimizing the few-shot learner's performance on
classifying the query examples. In this paper, we point out two potential
weaknesses of this approach. First, the sampled query examples may not provide
sufficient supervision for the few-shot learner. Second, the effectiveness of
meta-learning diminishes sharply with increasing shots (i.e., the number of
training examples per class). To resolve these issues, we propose a novel
objective to directly train the few-shot learner to perform like a strong
classifier. Concretely, we associate each sampled few-shot task with a strong
classifier, which is learned with ample labeled examples. The strong classifier
has a better generalization ability and we use it to supervise the few-shot
learner. We present an efficient way to construct the strong classifier, making
our proposed objective an easily plug-and-play term to existing meta-learning
based FSL methods. We validate our approach in combinations with many
representative meta-learning methods. On several benchmark datasets including
miniImageNet and tiredImageNet, our approach leads to a notable improvement
across a variety of tasks. More importantly, with our approach, meta-learning
based FSL methods can consistently outperform non-meta-learning based ones,
even in a many-shot setting, greatly strengthening their applicability
Devastating chest wall necrotizing fasciitis following pigtail catheter drainage
SummaryPigtail catheter for drainage of pleural effusion has gained popularity. Complication related to the insertion of these small-bore catheter is low. In this report, we highlight two cases with devastating necrotizing fasciitis of chest wall following pigtail catheter insertion
Dual Associated Encoder for Face Restoration
Restoring facial details from low-quality (LQ) images has remained a
challenging problem due to its ill-posedness induced by various degradations in
the wild. The existing codebook prior mitigates the ill-posedness by leveraging
an autoencoder and learned codebook of high-quality (HQ) features, achieving
remarkable quality. However, existing approaches in this paradigm frequently
depend on a single encoder pre-trained on HQ data for restoring HQ images,
disregarding the domain gap between LQ and HQ images. As a result, the encoding
of LQ inputs may be insufficient, resulting in suboptimal performance. To
tackle this problem, we propose a novel dual-branch framework named DAEFR. Our
method introduces an auxiliary LQ branch that extracts crucial information from
the LQ inputs. Additionally, we incorporate association training to promote
effective synergy between the two branches, enhancing code prediction and
output quality. We evaluate the effectiveness of DAEFR on both synthetic and
real-world datasets, demonstrating its superior performance in restoring facial
details.Comment: Technical Repor
Novel matrine derivative MD-1 attenuates hepatic fibrosis by inhibiting EGFR activation of hepatic stellate cells
A deep learning approach for lower back-pain risk prediction during manual lifting
Occupationally-induced back pain is a leading cause of reduced productivity
in industry. Detecting when a worker is lifting incorrectly and at increased
risk of back injury presents significant possible benefits. These include
increased quality of life for the worker due to lower rates of back injury and
fewer workers' compensation claims and missed time for the employer. However,
recognizing lifting risk provides a challenge due to typically small datasets
and subtle underlying features in accelerometer and gyroscope data. A novel
method to classify a lifting dataset using a 2D convolutional neural network
(CNN) and no manual feature extraction is proposed in this paper; the dataset
consisted of 10 subjects lifting at various relative distances from the body
with 720 total trials. The proposed deep CNN displayed greater accuracy (90.6%)
compared to an alternative CNN and multilayer perceptron (MLP). A deep CNN
could be adapted to classify many other activities that traditionally pose
greater challenges in industrial environments due to their size and complexity.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure
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Dual blockage of STAT3 and ERK1/2 eliminates radioresistant GBM cells.
Radiotherapy (RT) is the major modality for control of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most aggressive brain tumor in adults with poor prognosis and low patient survival rate. To improve the RT efficacy on GBM, the mechanism causing tumor adaptive radioresistance which leads to the failure of tumor control and lethal progression needs to be further elucidated. Here, we conducted a comparative analysis of RT-treated recurrent tumors versus primary counterparts in GBM patients, RT-treated orthotopic GBM tumors xenografts versus untreated tumors and radioresistant GBM cells versus wild type cells. The results reveal that activation of STAT3, a well-defined redox-sensitive transcriptional factor, is causally linked with GBM adaptive radioresistance. Database analysis also agrees with the worse prognosis in GBM patients due to the STAT3 expression-associated low RT responsiveness. However, although the radioresistant GBM cells can be resensitized by inhibition of STAT3, a fraction of radioresistant cells can still survive the RT combined with STAT3 inhibition or CRISPR/Cas9-mediated STAT3 knockout. A complementally enhanced activation of ERK1/2 by STAT3 inhibition is identified responsible for the survival of the remaining resistant tumor cells. Dual inhibition of ERK1/2 and STAT3 remarkably eliminates resistant GBM cells and inhibits tumor regrowth. These findings demonstrate a previously unknown feature ofSTAT3-mediated ERK1/2 regulation and an effective combination of two targets in resensitizing GBM to RT
Theory of Second-Order Topological Superconductors
Topological superconductors are a class of unconventional superconducting
materials featuring sub-gap zero-energy Majorana bound modes that hold promise
as a building block for topological quantum computing. In this work, we study
the realization of second-order topology that defines anomalous gapless
boundary modes in a two-orbital superconductor with spin-orbital couplings. We
reveal a time-reversal symmetry-breaking second-order topological
superconducting phase with -wave orbital-dependent paring without the
need for the external magnetic field. Remarkably, this orbital-active -wave
paring gives rise to anomalous zero-energy Majorana corner modes, which is in
contrast to conventional chiral -wave pairing, accommodating one-dimensional
Majorana edge modes. Our work not only reveals a unique mechanism of
time-reversal symmetry breaking second-order topological superconductors but
also bridges the gap between second-order topology and orbital-dependent
pairings.Comment: 5+ pages, 5 figure
Stage-Specific Expression of TNFα Regulates Bad/Bid-Mediated Apoptosis and RIP1/ROS-Mediated Secondary Necrosis in Birnavirus-Infected Fish Cells
Infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV) can induce Bad-mediated apoptosis followed by secondary necrosis in fish cells, but it is not known how these two types of cell death are regulated by IPNV. We found that IPNV infection can regulate Bad/Bid-mediated apoptotic and Rip1/ROS-mediated necrotic death pathways via the up-regulation of TNFα in zebrafish ZF4 cells. Using a DNA microarray and quantitative RT-PCR analyses, two major subsets of differentially expressed genes were characterized, including the innate immune response gene TNFα and the pro-apoptotic genes Bad and Bid. In the early replication stage (0–6 h post-infection, or p.i.), we observed that the pro-inflammatory cytokine TNFα underwent a rapid six-fold induction. Then, during the early-middle replication stages (6–12 h p.i.), TNFα level was eight-fold induction and the pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family members Bad and Bid were up-regulated. Furthermore, specific inhibitors of TNFα expression (AG-126 or TNFα-specific siRNA) were used to block apoptotic and necrotic death signaling during the early or early-middle stages of IPNV infection. Inhibition of TNFα expression dramatically reduced the Bad/Bid-mediated apoptotic and Rip1/ROS-mediated necrotic cell death pathways and rescued host cell viability. Moreover, we used Rip1-specific inhibitors (Nec-1 and Rip1-specific siRNA) to block Rip1 expression. The Rip1/ROS-mediated secondary necrotic pathway appeared to be reduced in IPNV-infected fish cells during the middle-late stage of infection (12–18 h p.i.). Taken together, our results indicate that IPNV triggers two death pathways via up-stream induction of the pro-inflammatory cytokine TNFα, and these results may provide new insights into the pathogenesis of RNA viruses
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Rab25-Mediated EGFR Recycling Causes Tumor Acquired Radioresistance.
Tumor acquired radioresistance remains as the major limit in cancer radiotherapy (RT). Rab25, a receptor recycling protein, has been reported to be enhanced in tumors with aggressive phenotype and chemotherapy resistance. In this study, elevated Rab25 expression was identified in an array of radioresistant human cancer cell lines, in vivo radioresistant xenograft tumors. Clinical investigation confirmed that Rab25 expression was also associated with a worse prognosis in patients with lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Enhanced activities of EGFR were observed in both NPC and LUAD radioresistant cells. Rab25 interacts with EGFR to enhance EGFR recycling to cell surface and to decrease degradation in cytoplasm. Inhibition of Rab25 showed synergized radiosensitivity with reduced aggressive phenotype. This study provides the clinical and experimental evidence that Rab25 is a potential therapeutic target to alleviate the hyperactive EGFR signaling and to prevent RT-acquired tumor resistance in patients with LUAD and NPC
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