GMAN: A Graph Multi-Attention Network for Traffic Prediction

Long-term traffic prediction is highly challenging due to the complexity of traffic systems and the constantly changing nature of many impacting factors. In this paper, we focus on the spatio-temporal factors, and propose a graph multi-attention network (GMAN) to predict traffic conditions for time steps ahead at different locations on a road network graph. GMAN adapts an encoder-decoder architecture, where both the encoder and the decoder consist of multiple spatio-temporal attention blocks to model the impact of the spatio-temporal factors on traffic conditions. The encoder encodes the input traffic features and the decoder predicts the output sequence. Between the encoder and the decoder, a transform attention layer is applied to convert the encoded traffic features to generate the sequence representations of future time steps as the input of the decoder. The transform attention mechanism models the direct relationships between historical and future time steps that helps to alleviate the error propagation problem among prediction time steps. Experimental results on two real-world traffic prediction tasks (i.e., traffic volume prediction and traffic speed prediction) demonstrate the superiority of GMAN. In particular, in the 1 hour ahead prediction, GMAN outperforms state-of-the-art methods by up to 4% improvement in MAE measure. The source code is available at https://github.com/zhengchuanpan/GMAN.Comment: AAAI 2020 pape

Recent developments in transport phenomena in Weyl semimetals

The last decade has witnessed great advancements in the science and engineering of systems with unconventional band structures, seeded by studies of graphene and topological insulators. While the band structure of graphene simulates massless relativistic electrons in two dimensions, topological insulators have bands that wind non-trivially over momentum space in a certain abstract sense. Over the last couple of years, enthusiasm has been burgeoning in another unconventional and topological (although, not quite in the same sense as topological insulators) phase -- the Weyl Semimetal. In this phase, electrons mimic Weyl fermions that are well-known in high-energy physics, and inherit many of their properties, including an apparent violation of charge conservation known as the Chiral Anomaly. In this review, we recap some of the unusual transport properties of Weyl semimetals discussed in the literature so far, focusing on signatures whose roots lie in the anomaly. We also mention several proposed realizations of this phase in condensed matter systems, since they were what arguably precipitated activity on Weyl semimetals in the first place.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures; Invited review submitted to topical issue of Comptes Rendus Physique devoted to topological insulators and Dirac matter. Pre-publication version; comments are invite

Sulfatase 2 facilitates lymphangiogenesis in breast cancer by regulating VEGF-D.

In our previous studies, sulfatase 2 (Sulf2) was found to upregulate vascular endothelial growth factor-D (VEGF-D) expression in breast cancer. As VEGF-D plays an important role in lymphangiogenesis, we hypothesized that Sulf2 facilitates lymphangiogenesis in breast cancer by regulating VEGF-D. To evaluate the functions of Sulf2 on lymphangiogenesis in breast cancer, proliferation, apoptosis, cell cycle, cell mobility and tube-formation of lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) were measured in vitro. Lymphangiogenesis in nude mouse ears and breast cancer xenografts were examined in vivo. Furthermore, the expression levels of related signaling pathway genes were screened and verified in LECs. We found that Sulf2 significantly increased the mobility and tube formation of the LECs, inhibited cisplatin-induced LEC apoptosis, but had no effect on cell proliferation and the cell cycle. Moreover, recombinant Sulf2 (rSulf2) combined with VEGF-D further promoted the proliferation, cell cycle, mobility and tube-like structure formation in the LECs, and at the same time inhibited cisplatin-induced apoptosis especially in the late stage. Sulf2 also significantly increased the density of lymphatic vessels in mouse ears and breast cancer xenografts in vivo. AKT1 was also shown to be upregulated and activated by Sulf2. Our results confirmed that Sulf2 facilitated lymphangiogenesis in breast cancer cells by regulating VEGF-D and that the AKT1‑related signaling pathway was involved

MOEA/D with Adaptive Weight Adjustment

Recently, MOEA/D (multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition) has achieved great success in the field of evolutionary multi-objective optimization and has attracted a lot of attention. It decomposes a multi-objective optimization problem (MOP) into a set of scalar subproblems using uniformly distributed aggregation weight vectors and provides an excellent general algorithmic framework of evolutionary multi-objective optimization. Generally, the uniformity of weight vectors in MOEA/D can ensure the diversity of the Pareto optimal solutions, however, it cannot work as well when the target MOP has a complex Pareto front (PF; i.e., discontinuous PF or PF with sharp peak or low tail). To remedy this, we propose an improved MOEA/D with adaptive weight vector adjustment (MOEA/D-AWA). According to the analysis of the geometric relationship between the weight vectors and the optimal solutions under the Chebyshev decomposition scheme, a new weight vector initialization method and an adaptive weight vector adjustment strategy are introduced in MOEA/D-AWA. The weights are adjusted periodically so that the weights of subproblems can be redistributed adaptively to obtain better uniformity of solutions. Meanwhile, computing efforts devoted to subproblems with duplicate optimal solution can be saved. Moreover, an external elite population is introduced to help adding new subproblems into real sparse regions rather than pseudo sparse regions of the complex PF, that is, discontinuous regions of the PF. MOEA/D-AWA has been compared with four state of the art MOEAs, namely the original MOEA/D, Adaptive-MOEA/D, [Formula: see text]-MOEA/D, and NSGA-II on 10 widely used test problems, two newly constructed complex problems, and two many-objective problems. Experimental results indicate that MOEA/D-AWA outperforms the benchmark algorithms in terms of the IGD metric, particularly when the PF of the MOP is complex.</jats:p

Clinical value of 18F-FDG PET/CT in the management of HIV-associated lymphoma

HIV is still a major public health problem. At present, HIV-associated lymphoma remains the leading cause of deaths among people living with HIV, which should be paid more attention to. 18F-fluorodeoxglucose (FDG) PET/CT has been recommended in the initial staging, restaging, response assessment and prognostic prediction of lymphomas in general population. HIV-associated lymphoma is, however, a different entity from lymphoma in HIV-negative with a poorer prognosis. The ability to accurately risk-stratify HIV-infected patients with lymphoma will help guide treatment strategy and improve the prognosis. In the review, the current clinical applications of 18F-FDG PET/CT in HIV-associated lymphoma will be discussed, such as diagnosis, initial staging, response evaluation, prognostic prediction, PET-guided radiotherapy decision, and surveillance for recurrence. Moreover, future perspectives will also be presented

Secure Inter-domain Routing and Forwarding via Verifiable Forwarding Commitments

The Internet inter-domain routing system is vulnerable. On the control plane, the de facto Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) does not have built-in mechanisms to authenticate routing announcements, so an adversary can announce virtually arbitrary paths to hijack network traffic; on the data plane, it is difficult to ensure that actual forwarding path complies with the control plane decisions. The community has proposed significant research to secure the routing system. Yet, existing secure BGP protocols (e.g., BGPsec) are not incrementally deployable, and existing path authorization protocols are not compatible with the current Internet routing infrastructure. In this paper, we propose FC-BGP, the first secure Internet inter-domain routing system that can simultaneously authenticate BGP announcements and validate data plane forwarding in an efficient and incrementally-deployable manner. FC-BGP is built upon a novel primitive, name Forwarding Commitment, to certify an AS's routing intent on its directly connected hops. We analyze the security benefits of FC-BGP in the Internet at different deployment rates. Further, we implement a prototype of FC-BGP and extensively evaluate it over a large-scale overlay network with 100 virtual machines deployed globally. The results demonstrate that FC-BGP saves roughly 55% of the overhead required to validate BGP announcements compared with BGPsec, and meanwhile FC-BGP introduces a small overhead for building a globally-consistent view on the desirable forwarding paths.Comment: 16 pages, 17 figure

A baculovirus dual expression system-based vaccine confers complete protection against lethal challenge with H9N2 avian influenza virus in mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Avian influenza viruses of H9N2 subtype have become highly prevalent in avian species. Although these viruses generally cause only mild to moderate disease, they can infect a wide variety of species, including chickens, quail, turkeys, ducks, geese, pheasant, partridge, and pigeon, even transmitted to mammalian species, including humans, accelerating the efforts to devise protective strategies against them.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results showed that stronger immune responses were induced in a mouse model immunized with BV-Dual-HA than in those vaccinated with a DNA vaccine encoding the same antigen. Moreover, complete protection against lethal challenge with H9N2 virus was observed in mice.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>BV-Dual-HA could be utilized as a vaccine candidate against H9N2 virus infection.</p