Can Language Model Moderators Improve the Health of Online Discourse?

Human moderation of online conversation is essential to maintaining civility and focus in a dialogue, but is challenging to scale and harmful to moderators. The inclusion of sophisticated natural language generation modules as a force multiplier aid moderators is a tantalizing prospect, but adequate evaluation approaches have so far been elusive. In this paper, we establish a systematic definition of conversational moderation effectiveness through a multidisciplinary lens that incorporates insights from social science. We then propose a comprehensive evaluation framework that uses this definition to asses models' moderation capabilities independently of human intervention. With our framework, we conduct the first known study of conversational dialogue models as moderators, finding that appropriately prompted models can provide specific and fair feedback on toxic behavior but struggle to influence users to increase their levels of respect and cooperation.Comment: 9 page

Cerebrolysin recovers diaphragmatic function and reduces injury-associated astrogliosis following a cervical spinal cord hemi-section injury in rats

Abstract Background Spinal cord injury (SCI) is widely considered the most disastrous medical condition. With no available treatment to date, SCI continues to cause disabilities to the patients and affect their own and their caregivers' quality of life. Cerebrolysin (CBL) is a neuropeptide preparation derived from purified brain proteins with suggested neuroprotective and neurotrophic properties. CBL showed earlier the ability to target multiple pathways that helped in the improvement of the recovery following different groups of neurological diseases and injuries, including ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injuries, and even neurodegenerative diseases. In the current study, the neuroprotective effect of CBL following a SCI is called into question using a rat model of spinal cord cervical hemi-section validated earlier by our lab and others. Using 32 rats divided into four groups randomly, CBL treatment was implemented for either 7 or 21 days duration, following the cervical spinal cord hemi-section. Results Following the CBL treatment, rats with cervical cord hemi-section showed functional improvement of diaphragmatic muscle as recorded by electromyography (EMG). In addition, the histopathological assessment of the spinal cord showed improved neuronal viability and reduced astrogliosis at the site of the injury compared to the non-treated group. 21-day treatment showed significant improvement when compared to the shorter 7-day regimen. Conclusion Our data suggest that CBL is capable of protecting and regenerating anterior horn motor neurons with functional recovery of diaphragmatic muscle functions in rats, suggesting the potential use of CBL for future regenerative and neuroprotective therapy following SCI

Adiponectin changes in HCV-Genotype 4: relation to liver histology and response to treatment

Summary.  Recently, attention has been focussed on adiponectin and its changes in different types of chronic liver disease. Its relation to hepatic fibrosis and insulin resistance in post-hepatitis liver disease is not clear. The aim of this study was to clarify the adiponectin changes in genotype 4 hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patient in relation to liver histology and insulin resistance, and its usefulness as a predictor of hepatic fibrosis and response to treatment. Total adiponectin and its high molecular weight (HMW) form as well as insulin levels were studied in 92 chronic HCV, genotype 4 and 66 healthy control volunteers. Neither total adiponectin (r = 0.101, P = 0.220) nor HMW adiponectin (r = 0.081, P = 0.328) correlated with viral load. Total and not HMW adiponectin was significantly correlated with hepatic fibrosis and inflammation (r = 0.267, P = 0.002, r = 0.278, P 75%, thus the cutoff points have poor sensitivity/specificity as predictors of fibrosis. However, as a predictor of end-of-treatment response, the ROC curve of adiponectin index gave yield an AUC = 81.4%. We can conclude that total adiponectin level, in HCV genotype 4 patients, increases with progression of hepatic fibrosis regardless of insulin resistance. Its high molecular form does not have such correlation. The adiponectin changes are not related to viral load, insulin resistance or other demographic data suggesting that this change is histologically related. In spite of this, no adiponectin cutoff level had reasonable sensitivity/specificity for predicting hepatic fibrosis stage, while this may be used as a predictor for antiviral response possibly reflecting improvement in hepatic inflammation post treatment