Personalized Federated Learning with Hidden Information on Personalized Prior

Federated learning (FL for simplification) is a distributed machine learning technique that utilizes global servers and collaborative clients to achieve privacy-preserving global model training without direct data sharing. However, heterogeneous data problem, as one of FL's main problems, makes it difficult for the global model to perform effectively on each client's local data. Thus, personalized federated learning (PFL for simplification) aims to improve the performance of the model on local data as much as possible. Bayesian learning, where the parameters of the model are seen as random variables with a prior assumption, is a feasible solution to the heterogeneous data problem due to the tendency that the more local data the model use, the more it focuses on the local data, otherwise focuses on the prior. When Bayesian learning is applied to PFL, the global model provides global knowledge as a prior to the local training process. In this paper, we employ Bayesian learning to model PFL by assuming a prior in the scaled exponential family, and therefore propose pFedBreD, a framework to solve the problem we model using Bregman divergence regularization. Empirically, our experiments show that, under the prior assumption of the spherical Gaussian and the first order strategy of mean selection, our proposal significantly outcompetes other PFL algorithms on multiple public benchmarks.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

LHX1 as a potential biomarker regulates EMT induction and cellular behaviors in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma

Objectives: To investigate the expression of LHX1 and its role as a biomarker in the diagnosis and prognosis of Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma (UCEC). Methods: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was used to detect the expression level of LHX1 in UCEC cells and tissues, and to find out the effect of LHX1 on prognosis. Co-expressed genes were then identified by Spearman correlation analysis, and the protein-protein interaction network was constructed using Cytoscape software. The R “clusterProfiler” package was used to conduct Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses. A series of in vitro experiments were performed to evaluate LHX1 expression and detect UCEC cell proliferation, invasion, and migration. Western blotting was used to determine the effect of LHX1 on expression levels of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT)-related proteins. Results: LHX1 was upregulated in UCEC tissues and correlated with poor overall survival and disease-specific survival outcomes. Functional enrichment analysis suggested that genes co-expressed with LHX1 were enriched in cell adhesion. The expression of LHX1 was positively correlated with the expression levels of genes related to EMT induction and invasion. LHX1 can enhance the proliferation, migration, and invasion activities of UCEC cells in vitro, and alter the expression levels of EMT-related proteins. Conclusion: LHX1 expression was highly upregulated in UCEC cells and tissues, which was correlated with the prognosis of patients with UCEC. LHX1 may regulate UCEC progression at least in part by modulating EMT induction

Catalytic Pyrolysis of Kapok Fiber for Production of Olefins

Pyrolysis of kapok fibers over mesoporous molecular sieves of MCM-41, Zr-MCM-41 and Cr-MCM-41 (the mole ratio of Si:Zr or Si/Cr=50) was studied by using pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). Pure silicon MCM-41 showed weak acidity during pyrolysis with furfural as the main product. Zr-MCM-41 showed the dual-functionality of acid and base with both furfural and hydroxy acetone present in the products. Cr-MCM-41 was more acidic with more furfural produced. The optimal conditions for producing olefins were found to be 600°C and the ratio of kapok fiber to catalyst being 1:10 with the Zr-MCM-41 catalyst. The main products obtained via pyrolysis of kapok fiber were acetic acid, furfural, 2,4-di-tert-butylphenol, olefins, and alkanes. The excess of the catalyst and the high temperature of the reaction had certain effects on the pyrolysis of biomass to produce olefins, such as 1-decene, 1-dodecene, 1-undecene, 1-tridecene and heptadecane. Citation: Qiu, Q., Cai, Y., Ye, Q., and Lv, W. (2019). Catalytic Pyrolysis of Kapok Fiber for Production of Olefins. Trends in Renewable Energy, 5, 218-228. DOI: 10.17737/tre.2019.5.2.009

Poly[dimethyl­ammonium [aquadi-μ2-oxalato-samarate(III)] trihydrate]

In the title complex, {(C2H8N)[Sm(C2O4)2(H2O)]·3H2O}n, the SmIII atom is chelated by four oxalate ligands and one water mol­ecule forming a distorted tricapped trigonal–prismatic geometry. Each oxalate ligand chelates to two SmIII atoms, generating a three-dimensional anionic network with cavities in which the ammonium cations and lattice water mol­ecules reside. Various O—H⋯O, N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen-bonding inter­actions further stablize the crystal structure