2 research outputs found
Using Cognitive Computing for Learning Parallel Programming: An IBM Watson Solution
While modern parallel computing systems provide high performance resources,
utilizing them to the highest extent requires advanced programming expertise.
Programming for parallel computing systems is much more difficult than
programming for sequential systems. OpenMP is an extension of C++ programming
language that enables to express parallelism using compiler directives. While
OpenMP alleviates parallel programming by reducing the lines of code that the
programmer needs to write, deciding how and when to use these compiler
directives is up to the programmer. Novice programmers may make mistakes that
may lead to performance degradation or unexpected program behavior. Cognitive
computing has shown impressive results in various domains, such as health or
marketing. In this paper, we describe the use of IBM Watson cognitive system
for education of novice parallel programmers. Using the dialogue service of the
IBM Watson we have developed a solution that assists the programmer in avoiding
common OpenMP mistakes. To evaluate our approach we have conducted a survey
with a number of novice parallel programmers at the Linnaeus University, and
obtained encouraging results with respect to usefulness of our approach
Family History of Breast Cancer Is Associated with Elevated Risk of Prostate Cancer: Evidence for Shared Genetic Risks
Introduction: Although breast and prostate cancers arise in different organs and are more frequent in the opposite sex, multiple studies have reported an association between their family history. Analysis of single nucleotide polymorphism data, based on distant relatives, has revealed a small positive genetic correlation between these cancers explained by common variants. The estimate of genetic correlation based on close relatives reveals the extent to which shared genetic risks are explained by both common and rare variants. This estimate is unknown for breast and prostate cancer. Method: We estimated the relative risks, heritability, and genetic correlation of breast cancer and prostate cancer based on the Minnesota Breast and Prostate Cancer Study, a family study of 141 families ascertained for breast cancer. Results: Heritability of breast cancer was 0.34 (95% credible interval: 0.23-0.49) and 0.65 (95% credible interval: 0.36-0.97) for prostate cancer, and the genetic correlation was 0.23. In terms of odds ratios, these values correspond to a 1.3 times higher odds of breast cancer among probands, given that the brother has prostate cancer. Conclusion: This study shows the inherent relation between prostate cancer and breast cancer; an incident of one in a family increases the risk of developing the other. The large difference between estimates of genetic correlation from distant and close relatives, if replicated, suggests that rare variants contribute to the shared genetic risk of breast and prostate cancer. However, the difference could stem from genotype-by-family effects shared between the two types of cancers