An Empirical Study of Mini-Batch Creation Strategies for Neural Machine Translation

Training of neural machine translation (NMT) models usually uses mini-batches for efficiency purposes. During the mini-batched training process, it is necessary to pad shorter sentences in a mini-batch to be equal in length to the longest sentence therein for efficient computation. Previous work has noted that sorting the corpus based on the sentence length before making mini-batches reduces the amount of padding and increases the processing speed. However, despite the fact that mini-batch creation is an essential step in NMT training, widely used NMT toolkits implement disparate strategies for doing so, which have not been empirically validated or compared. This work investigates mini-batch creation strategies with experiments over two different datasets. Our results suggest that the choice of a mini-batch creation strategy has a large effect on NMT training and some length-based sorting strategies do not always work well compared with simple shuffling.Comment: 8 pages, accepted to the First Workshop on Neural Machine Translatio

Hayek on Marx : its chronology and significance

本稿の目的は、フリードリッヒ・ハイエクのカール・マルクスに対する評価の変遷を抽出し、その意義を闡明することである。ハイエクの長い執筆活動のほとんどは、自由主義（資本主義）の擁護と、社会主義の批判に費やされた。にもかかわらず、膨大な書き物のうち、マルクスあるいはマルクス主義に関する言及は、ほとんど断片的と言えるくらい限られている。この理由を探ることで、ハイエクの社会主義批判の意図がより明確になるのではないか。こうした問題意識に基づいて、本稿は、第１節で初期ハイエクの経済理論的考察、第２節で中期ハイエクの方法論的考察、第３節で後期ハイエクの社会哲学的考察の３つに活動時期を区切り、それぞれの時期におけるマルクスへの言及を抽出したうえでその意義を考察した。かくして、ハイエクによるマルクス批判は確かに徹底的とは言えないものだが、それはかれがマルクス思想の背後にある科学主義や合理主義を批判したことが一因だと結論付けた。植村邦彦先生退職記念号本稿はJSPS科研費19H01472の成果の一部である

Successful management of placenta percreta by cesarean hysterectomy with transverse uterine fundal incision

Placenta accreta presents one of the highest risks to pregnancy, and its more severe variant, placenta percreta, is particularly risky. The incidence of both conditions is increasing. Placenta percreta requires a cesarean hysterectomy for management, but the challenges associated with this surgery often result in severe obstetric hemorrhaging and high rates of maternal morbidity. Several recent obstetric studies have reported on the usefulness of the transverse uterine fundal incision for the management of placenta accreta and its variants. However, these reports included only a few cases of placenta percreta. Here we present a case of placenta percreta covering the anterior uterine wall that was successfully managed using a transverse fundal incision, which avoided incising the placenta at delivery and thus reduced maternal blood loss. After delivery, the patient underwent a total abdominal hysterectomy without the need for a blood transfusion. We conclude that a transverse uterine fundal incision can be very useful for the management of placenta percreta of the anterior uterine wall

Impact of noncontrast PCI for ACS

Purpose : Contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) is one of the common serious complications of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). This study aimed to assess the significance of noncontrast strategy in the setting of ACS. Methods : CI-AKI was defined as an increase in serum creatinine of ≥ 0.5 mg / dL or ≥ 1.25 times from the baseline. One-year worsening renal function (WRF) was defined as an increase of ≥ 0.3 mg / dL in serum creatinine from the baseline after PCI. Results : Of 250 ACS patients, 81 were treated with noncontrast PCI. The average doses of contrast medium in the noncontrast and conventional groups were 17 (9–22) ml and 150 (120–200) ml, respectively. CI-AKI was observed in 4 patients (5%) in the noncontrast group and 29 patients (17%) in the conventional group. Noncontrast PCI was associated with a lower incidence of CI-AKI (adjusted odds ratio, 0.26 ; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.08–0.82). The bootstrap method and inverse probability weighting led to similar results. CI-AKI was associated with a higher incidence of 1-year WRF (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.30 ; 95% CI, 1.12–4.69), while noncontrast PCI was not. Conclusions : Noncontrast PCI was associated with the lower incidence of CI-AKI in ACS patients

Squamous cell carcinoma in an esophageal diverticulum below the aortic arch

AbstractINTRODUCTIONEsophageal diverticula frequently arise from pharyngoesophageal transition area, tracheal bifurcation and epiphrenic region. Carcinoma arising from esophageal diverticulum is rarely seen. We report a patient with a squamous cell carcinoma arising within an esophageal diverticulum below the aortic arch.PRESENTATION OF CASEA 70-year-old man was diagnosed to have a squamous cell carcinoma of the vocal cord with enlarged lymph nodes in the neck, as well as a squamous cell carcinoma arising within an esophageal diverticulum below the aortic arch. There have been no reported cases of esophageal cancer arising from a diverticulum below the aortic arch. Preoperative radiotherapy for the esophageal cancer and pharyngeal cancer was given, followed by surgery. The excised specimen of the esophageal diverticulum and its external appearance revealed that it lacked muscle fibers, with a type 0-IIa lesion arising from the diverticulum. Microscopic examination showed three lymph nodes at the superior mediastinum were positive for malignancy. Bilateral pleural dissemination was detected 7 months after esophagectomy.DISCUSSIONCancer arising from an esophageal diverticulum is mainly found at an advanced stage because of delayed diagnosis. The absence of muscularis propia may lead to early invasion. Thus, cancers within an esophageal diverticulum are considered to be at a more advanced stage than similar cancers arising elsewhere.CONCLUSIONFor detecting of cancer arising from an esophageal diverticulum, a high index of awareness is important. Delay in diagnosis makes surgical management difficult