Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative resistance to clubroot deconvoluted into QTL-specific metabolic modules

Plant disease resistance is often under quantitative genetic control. Thus, in a given interaction, plant cellular responses to infection are influenced by resistance or susceptibility alleles at different loci. In this study, a genetic linkage analysis was used to address the complexity of the metabolic responses of Brassica napus roots to infection by Plasmodiophora brassicae . Metabolome profiling and pathogen quantification in a segregating progeny allowed a comparative mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) involved in resistance and in metabolic adjustments. Distinct metabolic modules were associated with each resistance QTL, suggesting the involvement of different underlying cellular mechanisms. This approach highlighted the possible role of gluconasturtiin and two unknown metabolites in the resistance conferred by two QTLs on chromosomes C03 and C09, respectively. Only two susceptibility biomarkers (glycine and glutathione) were simultaneously linked to the three main resistance QTLs, suggesting the central role of these compounds in the interaction. By contrast, several genotype-specific metabolic responses to infection were genetically unconnected to resistance or susceptibility. Likewise, variations of root sugar profiles, which might have influenced pathogen nutrition, were not found to be related to resistance QTLs. This work illustrates how genetic metabolomics can help to understand plant stress responses and their possible links with disease.
Big Data and diabetes: the applications of Big Data for diabetes care now and in the future

We review current applications of Big Data in diabetes care and consider the future potential by carrying out a scoping study of the academic literature on Big Data and diabetes care. Healthcare data are being produced at ever‐increasing rates, and this information has the potential to transform the provision of diabetes care. Big Data is beginning to have an impact on diabetes care through data research. The use of Big Data for routine clinical care is still a future application. Vast amounts of healthcare data are already being produced, and the key is harnessing these to produce actionable insights. Considerable development work is required to achieve these goals.
Studies on relationships between extraction algorithms and voltage controllers for shunt active power filter

In the operation of Shunt Active Power Filters (SAPFs), the choose of extraction algorithm and voltage controller is very essential. Hence, this work focuses in investigating the relationship of different extraction algorithms and voltage controllers on the operation of SAPFs. Two types of extraction algorithms and voltage controllers are applied. There are Type 1 and Type 2 extraction algorithms and Proportional (P) and Proportional-Integral (PI) voltage controllers respectively. In this work, each extraction algorithm implements both voltage controllers at different time interval. Then, the effectiveness of each extraction algorithm in generating reference signal and how it affects the SAPF performance is studied. The simulation work has validated that the operation of both extraction algorithms and voltage controllers are related to each other. The performance of SAPF is varied with the different combination of extraction algorithms and voltage controllers. The use of Type 1 extraction algorithm is more flexible than Type 2 extraction algorithm.
The epidemiology of amyloidosis in Queensland, Australia

Published studies on the epidemiology of amyloidosis have relied on death certificate data for case ascertainment. We estimated the incidence and mortality burden of amyloidosis among residents of the Australian state, Queensland, aged ≥20 years for the years 1999–2013 based on case ascertainment from histopathology reports. Information systems for participating laboratories were scrutinised to identify histopathology reports that documented a diagnosis of amyloidosis. Case mortality status was determined via linkage to the National Death Index. A total of 447 cases of amyloidosis were identified, with a median age at diagnosis of 66 years. A plasma cell dyscrasia was identified in 72% of patients who had paraprotein studies performed. The estimated incidence for Queenslanders aged ≥20 years was 12·1 cases per million person years. The median survival was 2·45 years. Age at diagnosis, presence of a paraprotein, earlier year of diagnosis, and inner regional location of residence (compared with residence in a major city) were independently associated with reduced survival. Our data confirms previously reported incidence data for amyloidosis of approximately 10 cases per million patient years and indicates that survival for Queensland patients with amyloidosis is improving, though it remains poor for the elderly and patients with AL amyloidosis.
An update on synthetic high-density lipoprotein-like nanoparticles for cancer therapy

ABSTRACT Introduction: Significant clinical correlations have been observed between serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and cancer risk, outcomes, and patient response to specific treatments. While the biological processes underlying these correlations remain unclear, evidence suggests that HDLs actively inhibit tumor progression through a variety of mechanisms. As a result, synthetic HDLs have emerged as attractive agents for targeted cancer therapy. Areas covered: We present a focused review of recent developments in the use of synthetic HDLs for cancer therapy, including roles in drug delivery, RNAi, monotherapy, and immunotherapy. In addition to historic references relevant to the field, we searched the following databases for recent articles published from January 1st, 2015 – May 1st, 2019: MEDLINE, Web of Science Core Collection, and Google Scholar. Expert opinion: Synthetic HDLs have already been used in human patients for cardiovascular disease, and have proven to be effective anticancer agents in pre-clinical testing, which should pave the way for future clinical trials in the setting of cancer. Given the growing notoriety of dysregulated cholesterol homeostasis as a key mechanism of cancer progression, and the immense success of synthetic HDLs in animal models, synthetic HDLs are well-poised to make significant strides toward the clinic as cancer therapy.
The Occupational Burden of Nonmalignant Respiratory Diseases. An Official American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society Statement

Rationale: Workplace inhalational hazards remain common worldwide, even though they are ameliorable. Previous American Thoracic Society documents have assessed the contribution of workplace exposures to asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on a population level, but not to other chronic respiratory diseases. The goal of this document is to report an in-depth literature review and data synthesis of the occupational contribution to the burden of the major nonmalignant respiratory diseases, including airway diseases; interstitial fibrosis; hypersensitivity pneumonitis; other noninfectious granulomatous lung diseases, including sarcoidosis; and selected respiratory infections. Methods: Relevant literature was identified for each respiratory condition. The occupational population attributable fraction (PAF) was estimated for those conditions for which there were sufficient population-based studies to allow pooled estimates. For the other conditions, the occupational burden of disease was estimated on the basis of attribution in case series, incidence rate ratios, or attributable fraction within an exposed group. Results: Workplace exposures contribute substantially to the burden of multiple chronic respiratory diseases, including asthma (PAF, 16%); chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (PAF, 14%); chronic bronchitis (PAF, 13%); idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (PAF, 26%); hypersensitivity pneumonitis (occupational burden, 19%); other granulomatous diseases, including sarcoidosis (occupational burden, 30%); pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (occupational burden, 29%); tuberculosis (occupational burden, 2.3% in silica-exposed workers and 1% in healthcare workers); and community-acquired pneumonia in working-age adults (PAF, 10%). Conclusions: Workplace exposures contribute to the burden of disease across a range of nonmalignant lung conditions in adults (in addition to the 100% burden for the classic occupational pneumoconioses). This burden has important clinical, research, and policy implications. There is a pressing need to improve clinical recognition and public health awareness of the contribution of occupational factors across a range of nonmalignant respiratory diseases.
Combination of 6-thioguanine, procarbazine, lomustine, and hydroxyurea for patients with recurrent malignant gliomas.

OBJECTIVE To determine the efficacy of the combination of 6-thioguanine, procarbazine, lomustine, and hydroxyurea for patients with recurrent malignant gliomas after failure of either previous radiotherapy alone or previous radiotherapy plus nitrosourea-based chemotherapy. METHODS Seventy-seven patients with recurrent malignant gliomas were studied. 6-Thioguanine was administered for 4 days before lomustine, and procarbazine was administered for 1 day before and 2 days after lomustine to potentiate lomustine's antitumor effect. Hydroxyurea was initiated 1 day before lomustine and continued for a total of 3 days. RESULTS Thirty patients with glioblastomas and 47 patients with anaplastic gliomas were eligible for evaluation. In the glioblastoma group, 2 of 30 patients had a partial response and 8 of 30 patients had stable disease. This group of patients who responded and had stable disease included 6 of 10 patients who had not undergone previous chemotherapy but only 4 of 20 who had undergone previous chemotherapy. The overall median time to disease progression for the glioblastoma group was 9 weeks. In the anaplastic glioma group, 11 of 47 patients had a partial response and 25 of 47 had stable disease, including 23 of 30 without previous chemotherapy and 13 of 17 who had undergone previous chemotherapy. The median time to disease progression for the whole anaplastic glioma group was 24 weeks; however, the time to disease progression was 50 weeks for responding patients who had not undergone previous chemotherapy and 25 weeks for those who had undergone previous chemotherapy. CONCLUSION Our results indicate that chemotherapy with a combination of 6-thioguanine, procarbazine, lomustine, and hydroxyurea is active for patients with recurrent anaplastic gliomas and glioblastomas not previously treated with nitrosourea-based chemotherapy but is inactive for patients with glioblastomas previously treated with chemotherapy.
Phenotypic and Genotypic Characteristics of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Related to Persistent Endovascular Infection

Persistent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia (PB) represents an important subset of S. aureus infection and correlates with poor clinical outcomes. MRSA isolates from patients with PB differ significantly from those of resolving bacteremia (RB) with regard to several in vitro phenotypic and genotypic profiles. For instance, PB strains exhibit less susceptibility to cationic host defense peptides and vancomycin (VAN) killing under in vivo-like conditions, greater damage to endothelial cells, thicker biofilm formation, altered growth rates, early activation of many global virulence regulons (e.g., sigB, sarA, sae and agr) and higher expression of purine biosynthesis genes (e.g., purF) than RB strains. Importantly, PB strains are significantly more resistant to VAN treatment in experimental infective endocarditis as compared to RB strains, despite similar VAN minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) in vitro. Here, we review relevant phenotypic and genotypic characteristics related to the PB outcome. These and future insights may improve our understanding of the specific mechanism(s) contributing to the PB outcome, and aid in the development of novel therapeutic and preventative measures against this life-threatening infection.
Tweakable light and shade for cartoon animation

Light and shade in the context of non-photorealistic imaging, such as digital cel animation, are semantic notations, rather than physical phenomena. Therefore stylized light and shade should be intentionally animated instead of simulated. This paper proposes an intuitive, direct manipulation method for animating stylized light and shade in real-time. Our method provides intuitive click-and-drag operations for translating and deforming the shaded areas, including rotation, directional scaling, splitting, and squaring of high-lights, all without tedious parameter tuning. Our prototype system demonstrates the algorithms in our method, which are implemented along with a real-time cartoon shader on commodity graphics hard-ware. This system allows the interactive creation of stylized shading keyframes for animations, illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed techniques.
Analyzing customer satisfaction and service level using AI technique

"Attractive quality" is a critical issue for enterprises to obtain survivability in the modern global environment. The consumer quality involved not only the tangible product quality but also the perceived service quality during the whole process from purchasing to consuming the service/products. Due to competitive market, many organizations began to investigate the gap between "service quality" and "customer satisfaction". In this study, we test the gap between "service quality" and "customer satisfaction" using the survey data collected from the staffs and customers in a primary group of Taiwanese logistic industries based on the results derived with artificial neural network technology. Through the different service level aspects of customers and enterprises, we can eliminate the blind spot in the logistics industries so as to strengthen their competitiveness.
A comparison of perceived diagnostic image quality in direct digital panoramic images between standard and advanced external GOP image processing

Abstract Objective: The objective of the present study was to study the effect of adaptive image processing (GOP processing) on the visibility of anatomical structures in direct digital panoramic images. Material and methods: The study comprised panoramic images of 50 consecutive adult individuals aged 18–60 years. Nine dentists working with dental radiology compared the structural image quality of all standard-processed and GOP-processed panoramic images for six anatomical structures, using a six-point scale for visual grading characteristics analysis. Results: For all anatomic structures a statistically significant difference in favour of the GOP was found. Conclusions: The present study shows that it is possible to improve perceived diagnostic image quality of direct digital panoramic radiography using GOP technology compared to the manufacturers’ standard processing. Manufacturers’ image-processing programs can be further developed, as there is a possibility of improving the perceived diagnostic content of an image with external processing.
Pathogen exposure disrupts an organism's ability to cope with thermal stress

As a result of global climate change, species are experiencing an escalation in the severity and regularity of extreme thermal events. With patterns of disease distribution and transmission predicted to undergo considerable shifts in the coming years, the interplay between temperature and pathogen exposure will likely determine the capacity of a population to persist under the dual threat of global change and infectious disease. In this study, we investigated how exposure to a pathogen affects an individual's ability to cope with extreme temperatures. Using experimental infections of Daphnia magna with its obligate bacterial pathogen Pasteuria ramosa, we measured upper thermal limits of multiple host and pathogen genotype combinations across the dynamic process of infection and under various forms (static and ramping) of thermal stress. We find that pathogens substantially limit the thermal tolerance of their host, with the reduction in upper thermal limits on par with the breadth of variation seen across similar species entire geographical ranges. The precise magnitude of any reduction, however, was specific to the host and pathogen genotype combination. In addition, as thermal ramping rate slowed, upper thermal limits of both healthy and infected individuals were reduced. Our results suggest that the capacity of a population to evolve new thermal limits, when also faced with the threat of infection, will depend not only on a host's genetic variability in warmer environments, but also on the frequency of host and pathogen genotypes. We suggest that pathogen‐induced alterations of host thermal performance should be taken into account when assessing the resilience of any population and its potential for adaptation to global change.
Prevalence and Outcomes of Cryptococcal Antigenemia in HIV-Seropositive Patients Hospitalized for Suspected Tuberculosis in Uganda

Background:Cryptococcal infection occurs in HIV-seropositive patients and is associated with high mortality. However, limited information is available on the prevalence and outcomes of cryptococcal antigenemia among hospitalized HIV-seropositive patients in sub-Saharan Africa. Objectives:To determine the prevalence of and risk factors for cryptococcal antigenemia among HIV-seropositive patients presenting to Mulago Hospital (Kampala, Uganda) with unexplained cough ≥2 weeks and suspected tuberculosis (TB) and also to determine if antigenemia is associated with an increased mortality. Methods:Between September 2009 and September 2010, we enrolled consecutive HIV-seropositive adults hospitalized at Mulago Hospital with cough ≥2 weeks and suspected TB. Banked serum was tested for cryptococcal antigen. We compared demographic and clinical characteristics, and 2-month mortality in patients with and without cryptococcal antigenemia. Results:Of 563 HIV-seropositive patients, 32 (5.7%) were cryptococcal antigen (CrAg) positive. None had Cryptococcus neoformans detected on fungal culture of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (n = 116). CrAg-positive patients had a lower median CD4 count compared with CrAg-negative patients (25 vs. 55 cells/&mgr;L, P = 0.02), and a substantial proportion of CrAg-positive patients also had concurrent TB (31%). A positive CrAg test was not associated with increased mortality during the 2-month follow-up period (hazard ratio: 0.99, 95% confidence interval: 0.63 to 1.54, P = 0.95) after adjusting for CD4 count and antiretroviral therapy use at enrollment and/or follow-up. Conclusions:Occult cryptococcal antigenemia occurs commonly among hospitalized HIV-seropositive patients with suspected TB. CrAg testing should be considered in hospitalized HIV-seropositive patients with CD4 count <50 cells/&mgr;L, coupled with longer follow-up to evaluate the diagnostic value of CrAg and therapeutic interventions in patients with asymptomatic cryptococcal antigenemia.
MRI-based Treatment Planning for Proton Radiotherapy: Dosimetric Validation of a Deep Learning-based Liver Synthetic CT Generation Method

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been widely used in combination with computed tomography (CT) radiation therapy because MRI improves the accuracy and reliability of target delineation due to its superior soft tissue contrast over CT. The MRI-only treatment process is currently an active field of research since it could eliminate systematic MR-CT co-registration errors, reduce medical cost, avoid diagnostic radiation exposure, and simplify clinical workflow. The purpose of this work is to validate the application of a deep learning-based method for abdominal synthetic CT (sCT) generation by image evaluation and dosimetric assessment in a commercial proton pencil beam treatment planning system (TPS). This study proposes to integrate dense block into a 3D cycle-consistent generative adversarial networks (cycle GAN) framework in an effort to effectively learn the nonlinear mapping between MRI and CT pairs. A cohort of 21 patients with co-registered CT and MR pairs were used to test the deep learning-based sCT image quality by leave-one-out cross validation. The CT image quality, dosimetric accuracy and the distal range fidelity were rigorously checked, using side-by-side comparison against the corresponding original CT images. The average mean absolute error (MAE) was 72.87 ± 18.16 HU. The relative differences of the statistics of the PTV dose volume histogram (DVH) metrics between sCT and CT were generally less than 1%. Mean 3D gamma analysis passing rate of 1 mm/1%, 2 mm/2%, 3 mm/3% criteria with 10% dose threshold were 90.76% ± 5.94%, 96.98% ± 2.93% and 99.37% ± 0.99%, respectively. The median, mean and standard deviation of absolute maximum range differences were 0.170 cm, 0.186 cm and 0.155 cm. The image similarity, dosimetric and distal range agreement between sCT and original CT suggests the feasibility of further development of an MRI-only workflow for liver proton radiotherapy.
Establishment of an alcoholic fatty liver disease model in mice

ABSTRACT Background: Alcoholic fatty liver disease (AFLD) defines an important stage in the progression of alcoholic liver disease (ALD), which is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Objective: To establish a mouse model of AFLD. Methods: Male C57BL/6 mice were divided into the following two groups: (i) a control group, which was allowed free access to food and water and (ii) an alcohol-treated group, which was administered a 15% (v/v) alcohol solution instead of water. After 8–9 months of treatment, serum biochemical indexes, histopathological changes, liver triglyceride content, iron storage, and ferritin light chain protein expression were measured using an automatic biochemical analyzer, hematoxylin–eosin (HE) staining, a commercially available kit, Prussian blue staining, and Western blot analysis, respectively. Results: Compared with the control group, the alcohol-treated group displayed increased levels of serum LDH, ALT, and AST, decreased levels of ALB, and no significant change in levels of TP. Additionally, increased levels of serum TG, T-CHO, and LDL and decreased levels of serum GLU and HDL were observed in the alcohol-treated mice. HE staining showed that lipid vacuolization occurred in the livers of alcohol-treated mice. The alcohol-treated mice also exhibited increased liver triglyceride content. Moreover, Prussian blue staining and Western blot analysis demonstrated that chronic alcohol administration caused iron overloading of the liver. Conclusions: Chronic administration of 15% (v/v) alcohol in the drinking water over 8–9 months caused AFLD in mice. Our results establish an AFLD model that represents a promising tool for the future study of the progression of ALD.
Tracking of serum total cholesterol during childhood: an 8‐year follow‐up population‐based family study in eastern Finland

Aim: To investigate the tracking of serum total cholesterol (TC) during childhood. Methods: All children born during 1981–1982 in a rural community of eastern Finland were followed at 6 mo, 7 y and 15 y of age. The full follow‐up period was completed by 138 out of 205 children, of whom 82 (33 girls) had TC measured at 7 y and 15 y of age (–7 y, –15 y). The main outcome measurement was TC (mmol/L). Results: TC‐7 y was significantly associated with TC‐15 y (r= 0.655; p‐value <0.001). This correlation did not change significantly after accounting for confounders. Children in the highest tertile of TC‐7y had a significantly higher risk of being in the highest tertile of TC‐15y compared with children in other tertiles of TC‐7 y (relative risk = 6.4 (2.9–13.9)). TC‐15 y was predicted positively by TC‐7 y (linear regression beta = 0.63; p‐value <0.001) and parental high TC (TC ≥5.0 mmol/L in at least one parent) (beta = 0.58; p‐ value = 0.030). Birthweight had no significant association with TC during childhood.