371 research outputs found
Hiformer: Heterogeneous Feature Interactions Learning with Transformers for Recommender Systems
Learning feature interaction is the critical backbone to building recommender
systems. In web-scale applications, learning feature interaction is extremely
challenging due to the sparse and large input feature space; meanwhile,
manually crafting effective feature interactions is infeasible because of the
exponential solution space. We propose to leverage a Transformer-based
architecture with attention layers to automatically capture feature
interactions. Transformer architectures have witnessed great success in many
domains, such as natural language processing and computer vision. However,
there has not been much adoption of Transformer architecture for feature
interaction modeling in industry. We aim at closing the gap. We identify two
key challenges for applying the vanilla Transformer architecture to web-scale
recommender systems: (1) Transformer architecture fails to capture the
heterogeneous feature interactions in the self-attention layer; (2) The serving
latency of Transformer architecture might be too high to be deployed in
web-scale recommender systems. We first propose a heterogeneous self-attention
layer, which is a simple yet effective modification to the self-attention layer
in Transformer, to take into account the heterogeneity of feature interactions.
We then introduce \textsc{Hiformer} (\textbf{H}eterogeneous
\textbf{I}nteraction Trans\textbf{former}) to further improve the model
expressiveness. With low-rank approximation and model pruning, \hiformer enjoys
fast inference for online deployment. Extensive offline experiment results
corroborates the effectiveness and efficiency of the \textsc{Hiformer} model.
We have successfully deployed the \textsc{Hiformer} model to a real world large
scale App ranking model at Google Play, with significant improvement in key
engagement metrics (up to +2.66\%)
Poly[[μ2-aqua-μ3-(4-carboxy-2-propyl-1H-imidazole-5-carboxylato-κ4 N 3,O 4:O 4:O 5)-sodium] hemihydrate]
In the title compound, {[Na(C8H9N2O4)(H2O)]·0.5H2O}n, the Na+ ion is coordinated by two bridging water molecules, one N atom and three O atoms from three 4-carboxy-2-propyl-1H-imidazole-5-carboxylate (H2pimdc) ligands. Adjacent Na+ ions are linked alternately by two water O atoms and two carboxy O atoms into a chain along [001]. These chains are connected through the coordination of the carboxylate O atoms to the Na+ ions, forming a three-dimensional structure. An intramolecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bond and intermolecular N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds are present in the crystal structure
Survival after alcohol septal ablation versus conservative therapy in obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
Background: The impact of alcohol septal ablation (ASA) on the survival of patients with drug-refractory obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) remains unresolved. The aim of this study was to compare survival after ASA vs. conservative therapy.
Methods: We studied a consecutive cohort of 274 patients with severe drug-refractory obstructive HCM, 229 in ASA group and 45 in conservative group. The primary endpoint was a composite of all-cause mortality and aborted cardiac arrest.
Results: With a median follow-up of 4.3 years, primary endpoint occurred in 13 (5.7%) patients in the ASA group, and 8 (17.8%) patients in the conservative group. The 5- and 10-year survival free from primary endpoint of the ASA group (94.5% and 93.0%, respectively) was significantly better than that of the conservative group (78.3% and 72.2%, respectively, log-rank p = 0.009). Independent determinants of primary endpoint were ASA therapy (hazard ratio [HR] 0.22; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.08–0.60; p = 0.003) and maximal septal thickness (HR 1.14; 95% CI 1.03–1.27; p = 0.011).
Conclusions: In patients with severe drug-refractory obstructive HCM, survival after ASA is favorable and better than that of conservative therapy. ASA seems to improve survival
Mobile phone addiction and mental health: the roles of sleep quality and perceived social support
As a global phenomenon, mobile phone addiction has become an increasingly common issue among Chinese university students. Although previous research explored the link between mobile phone addiction and mental health, the possible mechanism underlying the above association is unclear. We administered a cross-sectional survey to 585 participants from two universities in Kunming, southwest China, from October 2021 to January 2022. Our results suggested that mobile phone addiction was negatively associated with mental health, and sleep quality partially mediated the relationship between mobile phone addiction and mental health. Furthermore, perceived social support positively moderated the direct effect of sleep quality on mental health, as well as the indirect effect of mobile phone addiction on mental health. These findings provide a new insight into the underlying mechanism by which mobile phone addiction affects university students’ mental health. The results emphasize a necessary task for administrators, health workers, and family members to attach importance to the overuse of mobile phones among university students
Antiviral Activities of Several Oral Traditional Chinese Medicines against Influenza Viruses
Influenza is still a serious threat to human health with significant morbidity and mortality. The emergence of drug-resistant influenza viruses poses a great challenge to existing antiviral drugs. Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) may be an alternative to overcome the challenge. Here, 10 oral proprietary Chinese medicines were selected to evaluate their anti-influenza activities. These drugs exhibit potent inhibitory effects against influenza A H1N1, influenza A H3N2, and influenza B virus. Importantly, they demonstrate potent antiviral activities against drug-resistant strains. In the study of mechanisms, we found that Xiaoqinglong mixture could increase antiviral interferon production by activating p38 MAPK, JNK/SAPK pathway, and relative nuclear transcription factors. Lastly, our studies also indicate that some of these medicines show inhibitory activities against EV71 and CVB strains. In conclusion, the 10 traditional Chinese medicines, as kind of compound combination medicines, show broad-spectrum antiviral activities, possibly also including inhibitory activities against strains resistant to available antiviral drugs
Longitudinal Changes in Diffusion Tensor Imaging Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury and Correlation With Outcome
The chronic consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) may contribute to the increased risk for early cognitive decline and dementia, primarily due to diffusion axonal injury. Previous studies in mild TBI (mTBI) have been controversial in describing the white matter tract integrity changes occurring at acute and subacute post-injury. In this prospective longitudinal study, we aim to investigate the longitudinal changes of white matter (WM) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and their correlations with neuropsychological tests. Thirty-three patients with subacute mTBI and 31 matched healthy controls were studied with an extensive imaging and clinical battery. Neuroimaging was obtained within 7 days post-injury for acute scans and repeated at 1 and 3 months post-injury. Using a region-of-interest-based approach, tract-based spatial statistics was used to conduct voxel-wise analysis on diffusion changes in mTBI and was compared to those of healthy matched controls, scanned during the same time period and rescanned with an interval similar to that of patients. We found decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) values in the left anterior limb of internal capsule (ALIC) and right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) during the 7 days post-injury, which showed longitudinal evidence of recovery following 1 month post-injury. Increased FA values in these two tracts at 1 month post-injury were positively associated with better performance on cognitive information processing speed at initial assessment. By contrast, there were also some tracts (right anterior corona radiata, forceps major, and body of corpus callosum) exhibiting the continuing loss of integrity sustaining even beyond 3 months, which can predict the persisting post-concussion syndromes. Continuing loss of structural integrity in some tracts may contribute to the persistent post-concussion syndromes in mTBI patients, suggesting certain tracts providing an objective biomarker for tracking the pathological recovery process following mTBI
Analysis of retinal vasculature changes in indirect traumatic optic neuropathy using optic coherence tomography angiography
AIM: To assess the retinal vasculature alterations in indirect traumatic optic neuropathy (ITON) patients following craniofacial trauma by optic coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). METHODS: Patients diagnosed of monocular ITON were recruited from August 2016 to May 2020. OCTA was performed using the AngioVue OCT-A system for two cube scans centered at the optic nerve head and fovea. OCTA data included thicknesses of peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and macular ganglion cell complex (GCC), as well as proportion of capillary perfusion and data were analyzed for correlation with post-injury timepoints: within 7, 8-30, 31-90, and 91-365d. RESULTS: A total of 73 ITON patients were studied. Significant thinning of RNFL and GCC layers and attenuation of microvascular perfusion were observed in ITON eyes as compared to contralateral unaffected eyes (for most of the analyzed sectors and quadrants, P<0.05). Without respect to surgical intervention and vision recovery, the decrease in retinal layer thicknesses and microvascular perfusion was time-dependent, and most significant within three months (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: ITON presents with time-dependent thinning of retinal layers and attenuation of microvasculature, indicating possible degeneration of retinal ganglion cells due to reduced retinal blood supply
Converse: A Tree-Based Modular Task-Oriented Dialogue System
Creating a system that can have meaningful conversations with humans to help
accomplish tasks is one of the ultimate goals of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
It has defined the meaning of AI since the beginning. A lot has been
accomplished in this area recently, with voice assistant products entering our
daily lives and chat bot systems becoming commonplace in customer service. At
first glance there seems to be no shortage of options for dialogue systems.
However, the frequently deployed dialogue systems today seem to all struggle
with a critical weakness - they are hard to build and harder to maintain. At
the core of the struggle is the need to script every single turn of
interactions between the bot and the human user. This makes the dialogue
systems more difficult to maintain as the tasks become more complex and more
tasks are added to the system. In this paper, we propose Converse, a flexible
tree-based modular task-oriented dialogue system. Converse uses an and-or tree
structure to represent tasks and offers powerful multi-task dialogue
management. Converse supports task dependency and task switching, which are
unique features compared to other open-source dialogue frameworks. At the same
time, Converse aims to make the bot building process easy and simple, for both
professional and non-professional software developers. The code is available at
https://github.com/salesforce/Converse
- …