Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A bHLH transcription activator regulates defense signaling by nucleo-cytosolic trafficking in rice.

Crosstalk between plant hormone signaling pathways is vital for controlling the immune response during pathogen invasion. Salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA) often play important but antagonistic roles in the immune responses of higher plants. Here, we identify a basic helix-loop-helix transcription activator, OsbHLH6, which confers disease resistance in rice by regulating SA and JA signaling via nucleo-cytosolic trafficking in rice (Oryza sativa). OsbHLH6 expression was upregulated during Magnaporthe oryzae infection. Transgenic rice plants overexpressing OsbHLH6 display increased JA responsive gene expression and enhanced disease susceptibility to the pathogen. Nucleus-localized OsbHLH6 activates JA signaling and suppresses SA signaling; however, the SA regulator OsNPR1 (Nonexpressor of PR genes 1) sequesters OsbHLH6 in the cytosol to alleviate its effect. Our data suggest that OsbHLH6 controls disease resistance by dynamically regulating SA and JA signaling. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Fluorescence and reflectance monitoring of human cervical tissue in vivo: a case study

An imaging spectrograph, designed and built by Science and Technology International (STI), and a point monitoring system, developed at the Lund Institute of Technology, have been used to measure the fluorescence and reflectance of cervical tissue in vivo. The instruments have been employed in a clinical trial in Vilnius, Lithuania, where 111 patients were examined. Patients were initially screened by Pap smear, examined by colposcopy and a tissue sampling procedure was performed. Detailed histopathological assessments were performed on the biopsies, and these assessments were correlated with spectra and images. The results of the spectroscopic investigations are illustrated by a thorough discussion of a case study for one of the patients, suggesting that the techniques are useful in the management of cervical malignancies.
Circadian rhythms in the mouse reproductive axis during the estrous cycle and pregnancy

Molecular and behavioral timekeeping is regulated by the circadian system which includes the brain's suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) that translates environmental light information into neuronal and endocrine signals aligning peripheral tissue rhythms to the time of day. Despite the critical role of circadian rhythms in fertility, it remains unexplored how circadian rhythms change within reproductive tissues during pregnancy. To determine how estrous cycle and pregnancy impact phase relationships of reproductive tissues, we used PER2::Luciferase (PER2::LUC) circadian reporter mice and determined the time of day of PER2::LUC peak (phase) in the SCN, pituitary, uterus, and ovary. The relationships between reproductive tissue PER2::LUC phases changed throughout the estrous cycle and late pregnancy and were accompanied by changes to PER2::LUC period in the SCN, uterus, and ovary. To determine if the phase relationship adaptations were driven by sex steroids, we asked if progesterone, a hormone involved in estrous cyclicity and pregnancy, could regulate Per2‐luciferase expression. Using an in vitro transfection assay, we found that progesterone increased Per2‐luciferase expression in immortalized SCN (SCN2.2) and arcuate nucleus (KTAR) cells. In addition, progesterone shortened PER2::LUC period in ex vivo uterine tissue recordings collected during pregnancy. As progesterone dramatically increases during pregnancy, we evaluated wheel‐running patterns in PER2::LUC mice. We confirmed that activity levels decrease during pregnancy and found that activity onset was delayed. Although SCN, but not arcuate nucleus, PER2::LUC period changed during late pregnancy, onset of locomotor activity did not correlate with SCN or arcuate nucleus PER2::LUC period.
Diabetic kidney disease in patients newly diagnosed with type-2 diabetes mellitus: Incidence and associations

The global prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) in adults is increasing all over the world. Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is one of the most common complications of DM. The aim of the present work is to study chronic kidney disease (CKD) in patients newly diagnosed with type 2 DM as regards incidence and associations. This is a comparative cross-sectional study. The study included 153 patients with newly diagnosed type 2 DM over the past six months. DKD was diagnosed if urinary albumin to creatinine ratio >30 mg/g in two out of three-morning urine samples collected within three to six months and/or estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) <60 mL/min/1.73 m2 using 2009 CKD-Epidemiology Collaboration creatinine equation. DKD was present in 45.75% of patients. In our study, 54.9% of patients had microalbuminuria, 39.2% had macroalbuminuria, and 5.9% had severely increased albuminuria. As regards eGFR, 5.2% of patients had eGFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m2. Regression analysis showed that increased levels of cholesterol, triglyceride, and glycated hemoglobin were associated with an increased likelihood of developing nephropathy while nonsmoking and elevated high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels were associated with a reduction in that likelihood. DKD was present in a substantial proportion of our patients at diagnosis. Routine screening for DKD is recommended in all patients early at the onset itself of diagnosis with type 2 DM.
Effectiveness of Steroid Treatment for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Background: The best way to administer steroids for sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL) is still unclear. The present study was aimed at estimating the efficacy of steroids by intratympanic, systemic, and combined therapy (CT) routes. Methods: A systematic literature search was performed from 1950 to October 2019 for randomized controlled trials comparing the use of intratympanic, systemic, and combined steroid therapy for SSHL. The outcomes of recovery rate and pure tone average (PTA) improvement were assessed by random-effects and fixed-effects meta-analysis. Results: A total of 20 articles identified from 7 countries were eligible for analysis. Although no significant difference in recovery rate was observed between intratympanic steroid therapy (IST) and systemic steroid therapy (SST), IST did demonstrate better hearing improvement, as evidenced by a higher PTA than SST. Compared with SST, CT comprising IST and SST had significant recovery rate improvement. Patients treated with CT had a significantly higher PTA than those treated with SST. Through subgroup analysis based on the equivalent dose of prednisone, it was shown that CT led to a significantly higher PTA than SST only in the high-dose CT versus high-dose SST groups and moderate-dose CT versus high-dose SST groups. Conclusion: Moderate and high dose of CT could accelerate hearing improvement in SSHL.
Robustness in an Ultrasensitive Motor

The bacterial flagellar motor is an ultrasensitive motor. Its output, the probability of the motor turning clockwise, depends sensitively on the occupancy of the protein FliM (a component on the switch complex of the motor) by the input CheY-P molecules. With a limited cellular pool of CheY-P molecules, cell-to-cell variation of the FliM level would lead to large unwanted variation of the motor output if not compensated. Here, we showed that the motor output is robust against the variation of FliM level and identified the adaptive remodeling of the motor switch complex as the mechanism for this robustness. ABSTRACT In Escherichia coli, the chemotaxis response regulator CheY-P binds to FliM, a component of the switch complex at the base of the bacterial flagellar motor, to modulate the direction of motor rotation. The bacterial flagellar motor is ultrasensitive to the concentration of unbound CheY-P in the cytoplasm. CheY-P binds to FliM molecules both in the cytoplasm and on the motor. As the concentration of FliM unavoidably varies from cell to cell, leading to a variation of unbound CheY-P concentration in the cytoplasm, this raises the question whether the flagellar motor is robust against this variation, that is, whether the rotational bias of the motor is more or less constant as the concentration of FliM varies. Here, we showed that the motor is robust against variations of the concentration of FliM. We identified adaptive remodeling of the motor as the mechanism for this robustness. As the level of FliM molecules changes, resulting in different amounts of the unbound CheY-P molecules, the motor adaptively changes the composition of its switch complex to compensate for this effect. IMPORTANCE The bacterial flagellar motor is an ultrasensitive motor. Its output, the probability of the motor turning clockwise, depends sensitively on the occupancy of the protein FliM (a component on the switch complex of the motor) by the input CheY-P molecules. With a limited cellular pool of CheY-P molecules, cell-to-cell variation of the FliM level would lead to large unwanted variation of the motor output if not compensated. Here, we showed that the motor output is robust against the variation of FliM level and identified the adaptive remodeling of the motor switch complex as the mechanism for this robustness.
Nobiletin exerts anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory effects in an in vitro human model and in vivo murine model of gestational diabetes.

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a global health issue, whereby pregnant women are afflicted with carbohydrate intolerance with first onset during pregnancy. GDM is characterised by maternal peripheral insulin resistance, thought to be driven by low-grade maternal inflammation. Nobiletin, a polymethoxylated flavonoid, possesses potent glucose-sensitising and anti-inflammatory properties; however, its effects in GDM have not been assessed. This study aimed to determine the effects of nobiletin on glucose metabolism and inflammation associated with GDM in both in vitro human tissues and an in vivo animal model of GDM. In vitro, treatment with nobiletin significantly improved TNF-impaired glucose uptake in human skeletal muscle, and suppressed mRNA expression and protein secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in human placenta and visceral adipose tissue (VAT). Mechanistically, nobiletin significantly inhibited Akt and Erk activation in placenta, and NF-κB activation in VAT. In vivo, GDM mice treated with 50 mg/kg nobiletin daily via oral gavage from gestational day (gd) 1-17 or via i.p. injections from gd 10-17 significantly improved glucose tolerance. Pregnant GDM mice treated with nobiletin from either gd 1-17 or gd 10-17 exhibited significantly suppressed mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in placenta, VAT and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT). Using a quantitative mass spectrometry approach, we identified differentially abundant proteins associated with the effect of nobiletin in vivo. Together, these studies demonstrate that nobiletin improves glucose metabolism and reduces inflammation associated with GDM and may be a novel therapeutic for the prevention of GDM.
Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation estimated risk and prevalent subclinical atherosclerosis in coronary and carotid arteries: A population-based cohort analysis from the Swedish Cardiopulmonary Bioimage Study.

BACKGROUND It is not clear if the European Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation algorithm is useful for identifying prevalent subclinical atherosclerosis in a population of apparently healthy individuals. Our aim was to explore the association between the risk estimates from Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation and prevalent subclinical atherosclerosis. DESIGN The design of this study was as a cross-sectional analysis from a population-based study cohort. METHODS From the general population, the Swedish Cardiopulmonary Bioimage Study randomly invited individuals aged 50-64 years and enrolled 13,411 participants mean age 57 (standard deviation 4.3) years; 46% males between November 2013-December 2016. Associations between Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation risk estimates and coronary artery calcification and plaques in the carotid arteries by using imaging data from a computed tomography of the heart and ultrasonography of the carotid arteries were examined. RESULTS Coronary calcification was present in 39.5% and carotid plaque in 56.0%. In men, coronary artery calcium score >0 ranged from 40.7-65.9% and presence of carotid plaques from 54.5% to 72.8% in the age group 50-54 and 60-65 years, respectively. In women, the corresponding difference was from 17.1-38.9% and from 41.0-58.4%. A doubling of Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation was associated with an increased probability to have coronary artery calcium score >0 (odds ratio: 2.18 (95% confidence interval 2.07-2.30)) and to have >1 carotid plaques (1.67 (1.61-1.74)). CONCLUSION Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation estimated risk is associated with prevalent subclinical atherosclerosis in two major vascular beds in a general population sample without established cardiovascular disease or diabetes mellitus. Thus, the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation risk chart may be of use for estimating the risk of subclinical atherosclerosis.
Neglected Traumatic Atlantoaxial Rotatory Dislocation in Adult: A Case Report

ABSTRACT Atlantoaxial rotatory dislocations (AARDs) are common in the pediatric population and rarely seen in adults. We describe a case of neglected AARD and subsequent management. A 25-year-old man developed a Fielding type 1 AARD following a road traffic accident. He was managed conservatively for 1.5 months before being referred to us. The patient underwent surgery 1.5 months after the accident. Closed reduction failed and C1-2 fixation with the Harms technique was performed after intraoperative reduction resulting in correction of deformity. Delay of treatment makes intraoperative reduction more difficult and increases the possibility of the chronic permanent change of neck muscles and ligaments. Hence, a high index of suspicion with a thorough clinical examination and judicious use of radiological investigations is paramount to the appropriate management of such cases.
Effects of a Post-Oxidation Annealing in Nitrous Oxide on the Morphological and Electrical Properties of SiO2/4H-SiC Interfaces

This work reports on the morphological, structural and electrical effects of a nitrous oxide (N2O) ambient post-oxidation annealing (POA) of the SiO2/4H-SiC interface. In particular, a conventional electrical characterization of MOS capacitors showed that nitrous oxide POA reduces the presence of both fixed oxide charge and the density of interface states. A local atomically flat interface was observed by transmission electron microscopy with only a moderate step bunching observed at a macroscopic scale. A novel nanoscale characterization approach via scanning spreading resistance microscopy resolved local electrical changes induced at the SiC surface exposed to N2O POA. This result subsequently revealed additional insight into the mechanism for the improved device performance subjected to N2O POA treatment.
Hyper-CVAD and Rituximab for De Novo Burkitt Lymphoma/Leukemia

Abstract 2698 Outcomes for Burkitt lymphoma/leukemia have improved significantly with the use of short, intensive, multi-agent chemotherapy regimens. The hyper-CVAD regimen (fractionated cyclophosphamide, vincristine, doxorubicin, dexamethasone alternating with high dose methotrexate (MTX) and cytarabine) was established as an effective first line program for younger patients with de novo Burkitt leukemia (B-ALL) [Thomas D, J Clin Oncol 17:2461, 1999]. An overall complete remission (CR) rate of 81% was influenced by a high infection-related induction mortality rate of 19% in the subset aged 60 yrs or older with 3-yr survival (OS) rate of 17% for older pts versus 77% in younger pts. Supportive care measures such as use of laminar air flow rooms since 1999 has reduced the elderly early mortality rate to Disclosures: Wierda:Genentech: Consultancy, Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees. O9Brien:Genentech: Honoraria, Membership on an entity9s Board of Directors or advisory committees, Speakers Bureau.
Fully automated scheme for computer-aided detection and breast cancer diagnosis using digitised mammograms

Breast cancer becomes a significant public health problem in the world. During the early detection of breast cancer, it is a very challenging task to classify accurately the benign-malignant patterns in digital mammograms. This study proposes a new fully automated computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for breast cancer diagnosis with high-accuracy and low-computational requirements. The expectation-maximisation algorithm is investigated to extract automatically the region of interests (ROIs) within mammograms. The standard shape, statistical, and textural features of ROIs are extracted and combined with multi-resolution and multi-orientation features derived from a new feature extraction technique based on wavelet-based contourlet transform. A hybrid feature selection approach based on combining the support vector machine recursive feature elimination with correlation bias reduction algorithm is proposed. Also, the authors investigate a new similarity-based learning algorithm, called Q, for benign-malignant classification. The proposed CAD system is applied to real clinical mammograms, and the experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed CAD system over other existing CAD systems in terms of accuracy 98.16%, sensitivity 98.63%, specificity 97.80%, and computational time 2.2 s. This reveals the effectiveness of the proposed CAD system in improving the accuracy of breast cancer diagnosis in real-time systems.
Automatic Construction of a Large-Scale Speech Recognition Database Using Multi-Genre Broadcast Data with Inaccurate Subtitle Timestamps

SUMMARY As deep learning-based speech recognition systems are spotlighted, the need for large-scale speech databases for acoustic model training is increasing. Broadcast data can be easily used for database construction, since it contains transcripts for the hearing impaired. However, the subtitle timestamps have not been used to extract speech data because they are often inaccurate due to the inherent characteristics of closed cap-tioning. Thus, we propose to build a large-scale speech database from multi-genre broadcast data with inaccurate subtitle timestamps. The proposed method ﬁrst extracts the most likely speech intervals by removing subtitle texts with low subtitle quality index, concatenating adjacent subtitle texts into a merged subtitle text, and adding a margin to the timestamp of the merged subtitle text. Next, a speech recognizer is used to extract a hypothesis text of a speech segment corresponding to the merged subtitle text, and then the hypothesis text obtained from the decoder is recursively aligned with the merged subtitle text. Finally, the speech database is constructed by selecting the sub-parts of the merged subtitle text that match the hypothesis text. Our method successfully reﬁnes a large amount of broadcast data with inaccurate subtitle timestamps, taking about half of the time compared with the previous methods. Consequently, our method is useful for broadcast data processing, where bulk speech data can be collected every hour.
NeuroImage: Clinical Resting-state EEG topographies: Reliable and sensitive signatures of unilateral spatial neglect

Theoretical advances in the neurosciences are leading to the development of an increasing number of proposed interventions for the enhancement of functional recovery after brain damage. Integration of these novel approaches in clinical practice depends on the availability of reliable, simple, and sensitive biomarkers of im- pairment level and extent of recovery, to enable an informed clinical-decision process. However, the neuropsychological tests currently in use do not tap into the complex neural re-organization process that occurs after brain insult and its modulation by treatment. Here we show that topographical analysis of resting-state elec-troencephalography (rsEEG) patterns using singular value decomposition (SVD) could be used to capture these processes. In two groups of subacute stroke patients, we show reliable detection of deviant neurophysiological patterns over repeated measurement sessions on separate days. These patterns generalized across patients groups. Additionally, they maintained a signi ﬁ cant association with ipsilesional attention bias, discriminating patients with spatial neglect of di ﬀ erent severity levels. The sensitivity and reliability of these rsEEG topo- graphical analyses support their use as a tool for monitoring natural and treatment-induced recovery in the rehabilitation process.
Fast Inference of Binarized Convolutional Neural Networks Exploiting Max Pooling with Modified Block Structure

SUMMARY This letter presents a novel technique to achieve a fast inference of the binarized convolutional neural networks (BCNN). The proposed technique modiﬁes the structure of the constituent blocks of the BCNN model so that the input elements for the max-pooling operation are binary. In this structure, if any of the input elements is + 1, the result of the pooling can be produced immediately; the proposed technique eliminates such computations that are involved to obtain the remaining input elements, so as to reduce the inference time e ﬀ ectively. The proposed technique reduces the inference time by up to 34.11%, while maintaining the classiﬁcation accuracy.
Ghrelin attenuates imiquimod‐induced psoriasiform skin inflammation in mice

The endogenous peptide ghrelin, which is produced in the stomach, plays a pivotal role in secretion of growth hormone, regulation of energy metabolism, and cardiovascular protection; however, its anti‐inflammatory action has recently gained immense attention, as this peptide is presumed to be effective in patients with heart failure and chronic lung diseases. In dermatology, psoriasis acts as a typical chronic intractable disease, which may be severe, and although biologic agents have been recommended and used for its treatment in recent years, their application is not clear. We administered ghrelin to IMQ‐induced psoriasis‐like mouse model and examined the anti‐inflammatory effect of ghrelin.
A Security Enhanced 5G Authentication Scheme for Insecure Channel

SUMMARY More and more attacks are found due to the insecure channel between di ﬀ erent network domains in legacy mobile network. In this letter, we discover an attack exploiting SUCI to track a subscriber in 5G network, which is directly caused by the insecure air channel. To cover this issue, a secure authentication scheme is proposed utilizing the existing PKI mechanism. Not only dose our protocol ensure the authentication signalling security in the channel between UE and SN, but also SN and HN. Further, formal methods are adopted to prove the security of the proposed protocol
Predictions of Xylene Adsorption on Agglomerated Activated Carbon Pellets in a Fixed Bed Column

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are an important category of air pollutants and adsorption has been widely recognized as an effective means of controlling emissions to the atmosphere. The current study used theoretical model to analyze the rate of xylene adsorption from inert gaseous stream on the granular activated carbon in a fixed bed column under varying operating conditions. The model considers the inner diffusion of VOC into the activated carbon particles. Experimental results of another author study were used to validate the present model and the methodology proposed to determine the xylene concentrations at the outlet of the column and corresponding inner particles.