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Classical federated learning approaches incur significant performance degradation in the presence of non-independent and identically distributed (non-IID) client data. A possible direction to address this issue is forming clusters of clients with roughly IID data. Most solutions following this direction are iterative and relatively slow, also prone to convergence issues in discovering underlying cluster formations. We introduce federated learning with taskonomy (FLT) that generalizes this direction by learning the task relatedness between clients for more efficient federated aggregation of heterogeneous data. In a one-off process, the server provides the clients with a pretrained (and fine-tunable) encoder to compress their data into a latent representation and transmit the signature of their data back to the server. The server then learns the task relatedness among clients via manifold learning and performs a generalization of federated averaging. FLT can flexibly handle a generic client relatedness graph, when there are no explicit clusters of clients, as well as efficiently decompose it into (disjoint) clusters for clustered federated learning. We demonstrate that FLT not only outperforms the existing state-of-the-art baselines in non-IID scenarios but also offers improved fairness across clients. Our codebase can be found at: https://github.com/hjraad/FLT/.

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INTRODUCTION: Medicinal plants have long been of great interest to scientists in the search for the best treatment of diseases, especially the infectious diseases. In recent years, the use of herbal medicines has become more well-known because of their antimicrobial, antifungal, anti-cancer and less side effects. AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the antimicrobial and antifungal effects of Urtica dioica, Equisetum arvense, and Punica Granatum peel extracts on two common oral microorganisms, Streptococcus mutans and Candida albicans. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study investigated the hydro-alcoholic extract of the plants. The antimicrobial activity of the extracts was evaluated using the method of measuring the inhibition of microorganisms, and the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) were determined using different concentrations of the extracts and also biofilm assay and SEM were determined. Also cell viability was assessed by MTT assay on human gingival fibroblast cells. RESULTS: The lowest MIC against S. mutants and C. albicans was related to the hydro-alcoholic extract of U. dioica. There was a significant reduction in the microbial biofilms by all three extracts. Among them, U. dioica could decrease the biofilms of S. mutans and C. albicans more than other extracts. In addition, the best results for growth inhibition zone were the hydro-alcoholic extracts of E. arvense and U. dioica with 35 and 30 mm growth zone, respectively. The results of SEM showed that P. granatum peel, U. dioica and E. arvense could destroy microbial biofilms without exerting any cytotoxic effects on HGF cell. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study suggest that U. dioica, E. arvense, and P. Granatum peel extracts can be used as mouthwash with the least significant difference with routine mouthwashes. Also, the plant-based mouthwashes may be more suitable substitutes for chemical types in the future.

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Unrestricted somatic stem cells (USSCs) loaded in nanofibrous PHBV scaffold can be used for skin regeneration when grafted into full-thickness skin defects of rats. Nanofibrous PHBV scaffolds were designed using electrospinning method and then, modified with the immobilized collagen via the plasma method. Afterward, the scaffolds were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy, physical and mechanical assays. In this study; nanofibrous PHBV scaffolds loaded with and without USSCs were grafted into the skin defects. The wounds were subsequently investigated at 21 days after grafting. Results of mechanical and physical analyses showed good resilience and compliance to movement as a skin graft. In animal models; all study groups excluding the control group exhibited the most pronounced effect on wound closure, with the statistically significant improvement in wound healing being seen on post-operative Day 21. Histological and immunostaining examinations of healed wounds from all groups, especially the groups treated with stem cells, showed a thin epidermis plus recovered skin appendages in the dermal layer. Thus, the graft of collagen-coated nanofibrous PHBV scaffold loaded with USSC showed better results during the healing process of skin defects in rat model.

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It has been confirmed that nanofibrous poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) nerve conduit can promote peripheral nerve regeneration in rats. However, its efficiency in repair of over 30-mm-long sciatic nerve defects needs to be assessed. In this study, we used a nanofibrous poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) nerve conduit to bridge a 30-mm-long gap in the rat sciatic nerve. At 4 months after nerve conduit implantation, regenerated nerves were cally observed and histologically assessed. In the nanofibrous graft, the rat sciatic nerve trunk had been reconstructed by restoration of nerve continuity and formation of myelinated nerve fiber. There were Schwann cells and glial cells in the regenerated nerves. Masson's trichrome staining showed that there were no pathological changes in the size and structure of gastrocnemius muscle cells on the operated side of rats. These findings suggest that nanofibrous poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) nerve conduit is suitable for repair of long-segment sciatic nerve defects.

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Nanotechnology has wide applications in many fields, especially in the biological sciences and medicine. Nanomaterials are applied as coating materials or in treatment and diagnosis. Nanoparticles such as titania, zirconia, silver, diamonds, iron oxides, carbon nanotubes, and biodegradable polymers have been studied in diagnosis and treatment. Many of these nanoparticles may have toxic effects on cells. Many factors such as size, inherent properties, and surface chemistry may cause nanoparticle toxicity. There are methods for improving the performance and reducing toxicity of nanoparticles in medical design, such as biocompatible coating materials or biodegradable/biocompatible nanoparticles. Most metal oxide nanoparticles show toxic effects, but no toxic effects have been observed with biocompatible coatings. Biodegradable nanoparticles are also used in the efficient design of medical materials, which will be reviewed in this article.

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