Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
miR-149-5p inhibits cell proliferation and invasion through targeting GIT1 in medullary thyroid carcinoma

Previous studies indicate that miR-149 could both inhibit and promote the development of human cancer depending on the tumor type. GIT1 was found to play an important role in regulating cell migration. However, the specific function of miR-149-5p and GIT1 in the progression of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to confirm the function of miR-149-5p in MTC and explore its downstream regulation. Moreover, miR-149-5p level in MTC was detected via RT-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). GIT1 expression levels were assessed by RT-qPCR and western blot analysis. The cell proliferation and invasion were detected through MTT or Transwell assay respectively. In addition, miR-149-5p was identified to directly target GIT1 in MTC via dual luciferase assay. The results suggested that miR-149-5p level was obviously declined in MTC. Functionally, miR-149-5p overexpression inhibited proliferation and invasion. Moreover, miR-149-5p directly targeted GIT1 and was negatively associated with its expression in MTC. Conversely, GIT1 expression was obviously increased in MTC. GIT1 overexpression partially reversed the inhibitory action of miR-149-5p in MTC. miR-149-5p suppressed the proliferation and invasion of MTC cells through targeting GIT1, which would create new therapeutic avenues for MTC treatment.
The utility of ADC measurement techniques for differentiation of low- and high-grade clear cell RCC

Purpose To evaluate the diffusion properties of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) concerning their Fuhrman nuclear grades and sizes, and to compare the diagnostic performance of two ROI placement techniques for apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurement (entire mass vs. only the darkest region of the mass). Material and methods Fifty-one ccRCC were enrolled in the study and grouped into low-grade ccRCC (Fuhrman grade 1 and 2, n = 37) and high-grade ccRCC (Fuhrman grade 3 and 4, n = 14). Selective ADC (Sel-ADC) measurement was performed by placing a circular ROI that included the darkest region of the tumour on ADC map images. Extensive ADC (Ext-ADC) measurement was performed by drawing an ROI that covered the entire tumour. Results The Sel-ADC value was lower in high-grade ccRCC (p = 0.019), whereas the Ext-ADC value did not show a statistically significant difference (p = 0.42). Sel-ADC value of a ≤ 1.405 mm2/s has a sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy value of 78.6, 72.2, 73.87, 77.13, and 75.4, respectively, to differentiate high-grade from low-grade ccRCC. The size and Fuhrman grade of the ccRCC were inversely correlated with the Sel-ADC value; however, the correlations were weak (r = –0.322, p = 0.021 and r = –0.376, p = 0.006, respectively). There was no difference between ADC values of small (≤ 4 cm) and large (> 4 cm) ccRCCs. Conclusions The ADC value of the darkest region in solid part of the ccRCC may play a role in predicting the nuclear grade of ccRCC.
Preoperative Computed Tomography Angiography in Autologous Breast Reconstruction—Incidence and Impact of Incidentalomas

Background: Incidentalomas are lesions found coincidentally during examination, imaging, or surgical procedures. Preoperative computed tomography angiography (CTA) before abdominal flap harvest for breast reconstruction can lead to identification of incidentalomas leading to the need for further investigations. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of incidental findings on preoperative CTA and to determine their impact on management. Methods: A retrospective chart review was performed at a single tertiary institution. CTA reports were analyzed for the presence of incidental findings and details of follow-up were studied. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with incidental findings. Results: One hundred eighteen patients with a mean age of 49 years were included in the study. The majority of patients underwent bilateral reconstruction (65%, n = 77) in the immediate setting (70%, n = 83). Fifty-six percentage had an incidental finding on CTA, with hepatic (20%), renal (14%), and osseous (11%) abnormalities being most common. Additional imaging including ultrasound, CT, and magnetic resonance imaging were recommended in 19 cases (16%). Additional consultations were sought for 3 patients before reconstruction (with suspicion of bone metastases, an intraabdominal mass, and suspicion of colonic malignancy, respectively). No significant surgical delay secondary to CT findings was noted. Conclusions: Incidentalomas following preoperative CTA of the abdomen/pelvis are common (56%). However, unlike previous reports, we did not observe a change in reconstructive plan following incidentaloma discovery. We recommend that all patients are counseled pre-CTA regarding the possibilities of incidentaloma detection and need for additional imaging.
CART cell therapy for prostate cancer: status and promise

In recent years, the, chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy as an adoptive immunotherapy has received great attention and made great breakthroughs. CAR-T cells show great specificity, targeting, and less major histocompatibility complex restriction in tumor immunotherapy, significantly different from traditional T cells. In spite of the progress of CART-T technology in the treatment of lymphoma, leukemia, and other blood system tumor, there are still many difficulties in the treatment of solid tumors by CAR-T technology. In this review, we will make a brief summary of the present situation of CAR-T cells in the treatment of prostate cancer, and discuss the promise of the application of this technology to prostate cancer therapy.
Comparison of two devices to simulate vision with intraocular lenses

Introduction The simulation of vision with intraocular lenses (IOLs) prior to the clinical validation is of great interest for manufacturers as well as clinicians. We have tested the influence of different IOLs on the perception of contrast using different devices. Materials and methods A Rassow telescope and the VirtIOL have been used to assess the contrast sensitivity function (CSF) through monfocal IOL (CT Asphina 409 MP, IOL 1), multifocal IOL (AT LISA tri 839 MP, IOL 2) and extended-depth-of-focus-IOL (TECNIS Symfony ZXR00, IOL3) in 21 participants, aged between 22 and 29 years. Contrast sensitivity (CS) was tested at various spatial frequencies (3–30 cycles per degree), using the Tuebingen contrast sensitivity test. Results All tested IOL reduced the CS when compared to measurements with a trial lens correction of refractive errors. The analysis of the area under the curve of the contrast sensitivity function (AUC-CSF) revealed a significant reduction compared to the trial lens correction in case the Rassow telescope was used (IOL 1: P=0.008; IOL2: P<0.001; IOL3: P<0.001) and the same was true for the VirtIOL device for IOL2 and IOL3 (IOL2: P<0.001; IOL3: P<0.001), but not for IOL1 (P=0.192). Interdevice analysis of the AUC-CSF revealed significant differences for IOL1 and IOL2 (IOL1: P=0.025; IOL2: P<0.001), while no difference was found for IOL3 (P=0.092). Bland–Altman analysis as well as intraclass correlations coefficients indicated only weak interdevice agreement for the tested IOL. Conclusion The assessment of the interdevice analysis for the Rassow telescope and the VirtIOL device revealed only a minor agreement between the two devices. In order to investigate vision with IOLs prior to a clinical validation, the use of the VirtIOL device is recommended.
Novel redispersible nanosuspensions stabilized by co-processed nanocrystalline cellulose–sodium carboxymethyl starch for enhancing dissolution and oral bioavailability of baicalin

Background To improve the dissolution and bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs, novel nanosuspensions using co-processed nanocrystalline cellulose–sodium carboxymethyl starch (NCCS) as a synergetic stabilizer were first designed. Methods Co-processed NCCS was prepared by means of homogenization. Poorly soluble baicalin (BCA) was used as a model drug. BCA nanosuspension (BCA-NS/NCCS) using co-processed NCCS as a dispersant was prepared via homogenization and further converted into the dried BCA nanosuspension particle (BCA-NP/NCCS) via spray drying. The influence of NCCS on the dispersion efficiency of BCA-NS/NCCS was investigated. Morphology and crystal characteristic of NCCS and BCA-NP were analyzed. The dissolution and bioavailability evaluation were performed to investigate the feasibility of NCCS as a stabilizer for BCA-NS/NCCS and BCA-NP. Results The optimum 50% concentration of NCCS (nanocrystalline cellulose [NCC]:sodium carboxymethyl starch [SCS]=60:40) could be mostly beneficial for formation and stability of BCA-NS/NCCS. NCCS could completely prevent aggregation of BCA-NP during spray drying and enhance the redispersibility as well as dissolution of spray-dried BCA-NP, which might be attributed to “brick–concrete”-based barrier effect of NCCS and the swelling capacity of superdisintegrant SCS. The crystal state of NCC and BCA presented in BCA-NP/NCCS remained unchanged during the homogenization. The BCA-NP/NCCS exhibited a fast dissolution rate and significantly enhanced bioavailability of BCA. The AUC(0–∞) of the BCA-NP/NCCS (8,773.38±718.18 µg/L·h) was 2.01 times (P<0.05) as high as that of the crude BCA (4,354.61±451.28 µg/L·h). Conclusion This study demonstrated that novel surfactant-free nanosuspensions could be prepared using co-processed NCCS as a synergetic stabilizer and also provided a feasible strategy to improve the dissolution and oral bioavailability of poorly soluble drug.
Effects of balance evaluation comparison of dynamic balance and Y balance

This study measured balance ability using both an existing clinical test tool, the Y-balance test (YBT), and an automated version of the YBT named the dynamic balance test (DBT) developed in this study. Correlations between the two methods were examined to determine whether the DBT can be used as an objective tool for balance ability evaluation. The subjects included in the study were 32 healthy male adults in their 20s, who were randomized into two groups, YBT and DBT, to compare the balance ability between the two groups. The maximum stretching distances of both legs in the anterior (AT), posteromedial (PM), and posterolateral (PL) directions were measured. Furthermore, to compensate for the difference in length between left and right legs, the mean and standard deviations were determined using the standardization formula, and the standardized values were represented as percentages. For the statistical analysis of the data, an independent t-test was performed using SPSS ver. 18.0. The test results showed no significant differences between the two groups in both left and right legs in the AT, PM, and PL directions (P>0.05). Therefore, measuring balance ability with the DBT, which uses digital sensor measurement technology (an automated data recording, wireless data transmission, storage, and management system; measurement is possible even by one subject of balance ability test), was found to be advantageous in respect to the YBT in terms of time, efficiency, and convenience.
COMPLEXITY ANALYSIS FOR KAISER WINDOW AND EQUIRIPPLE PROTOTYPE FILTER DESIGN FOR CHANNELIZATION IDFT FILTERBANKS IN COGNITIVE RADIO APPLICATIONS

An apparatus and method for preserving the color, texture and visual effect of sports related items enclosed within transparent material for purposes of ornamental display. In the preferred embodiment, the sports related item is preserved by vacuum sealing or freeze-drying and encased in transparent resin. The preserved sports item may be displayed alone or in combination with photographs, descriptions, other memorabilia and the like.
Diagnostic value of ultrasound combined with magnetic resonance imaging in different stages of breast cancer

Diagnostic value of ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in breast cancer were investigated. One hundred and forty breast cancer patients diagnosed in Heping Hospital Affiliated to Changzhi Medical College from June 2016 to June 2018 were collected, used as breast cancer group, 80 patients with benign breast tumor in the same period were the benign group. Pathological results were used to compare the diagnostic coincidence of US and MRI in breast cancer patients. The positive expression case rates of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor were significantly higher in breast cancer group than those in benign group, but that of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her-2) was significantly lower in breast cancer group than that in benign group (all P<0.05). The sensitivity (SEN) of MRI alone and that of US combined with MRI were higher than that of US alone (P<0.05). The specificity (SPE) of MRI alone was lower than that of US alone and US combined with MRI (P<0.05). The NPV of US combined with MRI was significantly higher than that of US alone (P<0.05). The Youden index (YI) of US combined with MRI was significantly higher than that of US alone and MRI alone. In the diagnosis of N2, that of US combined with MRI was significantly higher than those of US alone and MRI alone (P<0.05). In stages of M0 and M1 among three methods, those of MRI alone and US combined with MRI were higher than that of US alone (P<0.05). US combined with MRI for the diagnosis of breast cancer has higher SEN and SPE, with better accuracy rate for the identification of each stage. Reducing the incidence of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis that may be caused by single diagnosis and treatment, it is conducive to clinical screening and guiding clinical symptomatic treatment.
Correlation between tumor microenvironment-associated factors and the efficacy and prognosis of neoadjuvant therapy for rectal cancer

The tumor microenvironment contributes to the survival and development of tumor cells and is therefore a key target for cancer therapy. The tumor microenvironment has unique physical and chemical properties and is associated with inflammation and immunity. To examine the correlation between tumor microenvironment-associated factors and the efficacy and prognosis of neoadjuvant therapy for rectal cancer, and to compare the differences between two treatments [neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) vs. neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NACR)], an immunohistochemical method was used to measure the expression levels of CD4+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), cluster of differentiation (CD)8+TILs, forkhead box P3 (FOXP3)+TILs, cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4+TILs and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1)+TILs in 109 patients with rectal cancer, pre- and post-neoadjuvant therapy. The significance of these protein expression patterns was also analyzed using tissue microarrays, and the prognostic significance of these findings evaluated. The results indicated that high levels of CD4+TILs, CD8+TILs and PD-L1+TILs may be associated with favorable responses to neoadjuvant therapy, whereas high levels of FOXP3+TILs were associated with poor therapeutic responses. Expression levels of CD8+TILs and FOXP3+TILs following neoadjuvant therapy were independent prognostic factors and affected the total survival of patients subjected to neoadjuvant therapy for the treatment of rectal cancer. Moreover, the effects of NAC and NACR on the tumor microenvironment may be different.
Mechanical Properties and Structures of Clay-Polyelectrolyte Blend Hydrogels

Our recent studies have shown that the hydrogels prepared by blending clay, a dispersant of clay, and a polyelectrolyte (sodium polyacrylate (PAAS)) possess excellent mechanical properties. In order to clarify the mechanism of the toughness, we have so far investigated the effects of the composition, molecular mass of the polymer, and kinds of polymers on the mechanical properties. This study has focused upon the mechanical properties and structures of the clay/PAAS gels using three kinds of smectite clay minerals such as synthetic hectorite (laponite XLG), saponite (sumecton-SA), montmorillonite (kunipia-F), whose particle size becomes larger according to the sequence. Laponite/PAAS and sumecton/PAAS gels were quite tough for high compression, whereas kunipia-F/PAAS did not gelate. In comparison between sumecton/PAAS gel and laponite/PAAS gel, the mechanical property of the former gel was poorer than that of the latter gel due to the inhomogeneous distribution of clay platelets in the gel. Synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering experiments revealed that their clay platelets laid down in the stretching direction under elongation. Furthermore, it was found that sumecton/PAAS gel under elongation was arranged with an interparticle distance of ~6.3 nm in the direction perpendicular to the stretching. Such local ordering under elongation may originate in local aggregation of sumecton platelets in the original state without elongation.
Middle Eastern Rhinoplasty: Update

Summary: Middle Eastern rhinoplasty requires especially precise preoperative planning to achieve a successful result. Among all aesthetic surgery procedures, there is a higher demand for rhinoplasty among Middle Eastern cultures. The key is to maintain the ethnicity of the patients while meeting their goals. In this brief overview, common features in Middle Eastern patients and Middle Eastern rhinoplasty techniques in men and women are highlighted.
Fast Tensor Factorization for Large-Scale Context-Aware Recommendation from Implicit Feedback

This paper presents a fast Tensor Factorization (TF) algorithm for context-aware recommendation from implicit feedback. For such a recommendation problem, the observed data indicate the (positive) association between users and items in some given contexts. For better accuracy, it has been shown essential to include unobserved data that indicate the negative user-item-context associations. As such unobserved data greatly outnumber the observed ones, for efficiency existing algorithms usually use only a small part of the unobserved data for model training. We show in this paper that it is possible, and beneficial, to use all the unobserved data in training a TF based context-aware recommender system. This is achieved by two technical innovations. First, we scrutinize the matrix computation of the closed-form solution and accelerate the computation by memorizing the repetitive computation. Second, we further boost the generalization and scalability by dropping out some pairwise interactions when updating user, item or context factors to prevent overfitting and to reduce the training time. The resulting whole-data based learning algorithm, referred to as DropTF in the paper, is efficient and scale well. Our evaluation on two small benchmark datasets and a million-scale large dataset demonstrates improved accuracy over some existing algorithms for context-aware recommendation.
Untersuchungen zur Detektion von spekulären Reflexionen in Fassadenbildern

Schlagschatten und Spiegelungen zeigen den Einfluss von direkter Beleuchtung wahrend der Bildgewinnung und damit die Notwendigkeit, sie bei der Bildanalyse zu berucksichtigen. Bei der Visualisierung virtueller Welten kommen Beleuchtungsmodelle zum Einsatz, wie z.B. das Modell von Phong (1975), bei dem zwischen diffuser Streuung des Lichts und spekularen Reflexionen unterschieden wird. Im vorgelegten Beitrag werden zwei bestehende Ansatze fur die Detektion von spekularen Reflexionen vorgestellt, und es wird untersucht, ob diese nicht nur unter Laborbedingungen, sondern bei der Analyse von Fassadenbildern eingesetzt werden konnen. Es wird gezeigt, dass selbst unter Hinzunahme weiterer Information wie die 3D-Geometrie der Szene, d.h. des rekonstruierten Objekts und der Lokalisierung einer potentiellen Lichtquelle in einer Richtungskugel, helle, diffuse Streuung die Detektion spekularer Reflexionen stark behindert.
High-radix low-complexity architectures for long-length DCT using conventional arithmetic and ROM-based distributed arithmetic

Long-length (256-pt. or 512-pt.) DCT is widely used in audio compression standards such as AC-3. Most current short-length (8-pt.) DCT processor designs cannot be easily extended to efficiently compute the long-length DCT due to the high hardware complexity and/or the irregular interconnection wirings. In this paper, several hardware-efficient long-length DCT architectures are proposed using high-radix recursive decomposition of the coefficient matrix. The architectures employ both conventional arithmetic (multipliers and adders) and ROM-based distributed arithmetic to realize the multiplication of the decomposed matrices. Compared with the linearly increasing number of arithmetic units or exponentially increasing ROM size in many previously proposed methods, our new architectures require only order O(logN) arithmetic units and/or order O(NlogN) words of ROM. Furthermore, the proposed regular architectures are easily extended to compute long-length DCT.
DIAGNOSING PLAN EXECUTION DISCREPANCIES IN A LOGIC-BASED ACTION FRAMEWORK

This paper introduces a logic-based framework for monitoring plan execution relative to a given set of trajectories. According to this fr amework, a monitoring agent can tell when things go wrong by checking the compatibility of the plan execution with the given trajectories, considering the current state informa tion. She finds an explanation for these detected discrepancies by examining the given trajectories against possible evolutions of the current state from the initial state. Such an explanat ion provides information about possible points of failure that may be useful in two ways. First, points of failure can be used to determine some checkpoints (specifying when to check for discrepancies), and this may be useful if the plan is executed many times. Second, they can be used for recovering from discrepancies. For instance, the agent can undo the plan execution until a point of failure, from which the remainder of the plan can be (re)executed, thus avoiding an expen- sive (re)planning step. In this paper, we present formal spe cifications for discrepancies and explanations for them in a general action representation fr amework, which can accommo- date nondeterminism, concurrency, and dynamic worlds. We describe two ways of finding explanations for detected discrepancies, and study their p roperties. Moreover, we analyze the computational complexity of detecting discrepancies and finding explanations for them, and describe how these computational problems can be solved.