SLCA: Slow Learner with Classifier Alignment for Continual Learning on a Pre-trained Model

The goal of continual learning is to improve the performance of recognition models in learning sequentially arrived data. Although most existing works are established on the premise of learning from scratch, growing efforts have been devoted to incorporating the benefits of pre-training. However, how to adaptively exploit the pre-trained knowledge for each incremental task while maintaining its generalizability remains an open question. In this work, we present an extensive analysis for continual learning on a pre-trained model (CLPM), and attribute the key challenge to a progressive overfitting problem. Observing that selectively reducing the learning rate can almost resolve this issue in the representation layer, we propose a simple but extremely effective approach named Slow Learner with Classifier Alignment (SLCA), which further improves the classification layer by modeling the class-wise distributions and aligning the classification layers in a post-hoc fashion. Across a variety of scenarios, our proposal provides substantial improvements for CLPM (e.g., up to 49.76%, 50.05%, 44.69% and 40.16% on Split CIFAR-100, Split ImageNet-R, Split CUB-200 and Split Cars-196, respectively), and thus outperforms state-of-the-art approaches by a large margin. Based on such a strong baseline, critical factors and promising directions are analyzed in-depth to facilitate subsequent research.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted by ICCV 202

Semileptonic BB and BsB_s decays involving scalar and axial-vector mesons

We report our theoretical calculations on the branching fractions for the semileptonic $B$ and $B_s$ decays, i.e., $B (B_s) \to (P,\, V,\, S,\,A) \ell \nu_\ell$, where $P$ and $V$ denote the pseudoscalar and vector mesons, respectively, while $S$ denotes the scalar meson with mass above 1 GeV and $A$ the axial-vector meson. The branching fractions for the semileptonic $B\to P$ and $V$ modes have been measured very well in experiment and our theoretical values are in good agreement with them. The ones for $B\to S$ and $A$ modes are our theoretical predictions. There is little experimental information on the semileptonic $B_s$ decays although much theoretical effort has been done. In addition, we predict the branching fractions of $B\to D^*_0(2400) \ell \bar\nu_\ell$ and $B_s\to D^{*-}_{s0}(2317) \ell \bar\nu_\ell$ as $(2.31\pm 0.25)\times 10^{-3}$ and $(3.07\pm0.34)\times 10^{-3}$, in order, assuming them as the conventional mesons with quark-antiquark configuration. The high luminosity $e^+e^-$ collider SuperKEKB/Belle-II is running, with the data sample enhanced by a factor of 40 compared to Belle, which will provide huge opportunity for the test of the theoretical predictions and further help understand the inner structure of these scalar and axial vector mesons, e.g., the glueball content of $f_0(1710)$ and the mixing angles for the axial-vector mesons. These decay channels can also be accessed by the LHCb experiment.Comment: final version, will appear in EPJC, one more reference adde

Thermal management of the hotspots in 3-D integrated circuits

Vertical integration for microelectronics possesses significant challenges due to its fast dissipation of heat generated in multiple device planes. This paper focuses on thermal management of a 3-D integrated circuit, and micro-channel cooling is adopted to deal with the 3-D integrated circuitthermal problems. In addition, thermal through-silicon vias are also used to improve the capacity of heat trans-mission. It is found that combination of microchannel cooling and thermal through-silicon vias can remarkably alleviate the hotspots. The results presented in this paper are expected to aid in the development of thermal design guidelines for 3-D integrated circuits

Spore Powder of Ganoderma lucidum Improves Cancer-Related Fatigue in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Endocrine Therapy: A Pilot Clinical Trial

The fatigue prevalence in breast cancer survivors is high during the endocrine treatment. However, there are few evidence-based interventions to manage this symptom. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of spore powder of Ganoderma lucidum for cancer-related fatigue in breast cancer patients undergoing endocrine therapy. Spore powder of Ganoderma lucidum is a kind of Basidiomycete which is a widely used traditional medicine in China. 48 breast cancer patients with cancer-related fatigue undergoing endocrine therapy were randomized into the experimental or control group. FACT-F, HADS, and EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaires data were collected at baseline and 4 weeks after treatment. The concentrations of TNF-α, IL-6, and liver-kidney functions were measured before and after intervention. The experimental group showed statistically significant improvements in the domains of physical well-being and fatigue subscale after intervention. These patients also reported less anxiety and depression and better quality of life. Immune markers of CRF were significantly lower and no serious adverse effects occurred during the study. This pilot study suggests that spore powder of Ganoderma lucidum may have beneficial effects on cancer-related fatigue and quality of life in breast cancer patients undergoing endocrine therapy without any significant adverse effect