bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Local eosinophils are associated with increased IgA subclass levels in the sinonasal mucosa of chronic rhinosinusitis with polyp patients
Authors: Aazami Hossein , Seif Farhad , Ghalehbaghi Babak , Babaheidarian Pegah , Mohebbi Alireza , Ahmadi Aslan , Khoshmirsafa Majid , Ghalehbaghi Sahand , Behnam Babak , Entezami Kobra Zinat , Madjd Zahra , Falak Reza 
Published: April 2020

AbstractBackgroundChronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) describes an inflammatory condition affecting the sinonasal mucosa. As the immune system players such as immunoglobulins play prominent roles in the development of CRS, we aimed to investigate the expression of IgA subclasses and factors involved in IgA class switching in the sinonasal mucosa of CRS patients.MethodsSpecimens were collected from the sinonasal mucosa of the healthy controls and CRS patients. Histological assessments were performed by H&E and immunohistochemistry. Real-time PCR and ELISA methods were applied to measure gene expression and protein levels extracted from tissue samples, respectively.ResultsWe observed that total IgA and subclass-positive cells were higher in the patient groups than controls. There was a significant correlation between the number of eosinophils and total IgA and subclasses-positive cells (Pv < 0.0001). The expression of CXCL13, BAFF, AID, and germline transcripts were increased in CRSwNP patients. In contrast to IgA2 levels, IgA1 levels were significantly increased in the sinonasal tissue of CRSwNP patients (Pv < 0.01). TGF-β was significantly elevated in the sinonasal tissue of patients with CRSsNP.ConclusionsIncreased protein levels of IgA subclasses and related antibody-producing cells were associated with elevated eosinophils in CRSwNP patients which may result in eosinophil pathological functions. Several therapeutic approaches might be developed to modulate the IgA production to ameliorate the inflammatory mechanisms in CRSwNP patients.
Imaging diagnosis and staging of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: a comprehensive review
Authors: Elbanna Khaled Y. , Jang Hyun-Jung , Kim Tae Kyoung 
Published: April 2020

AbstractPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has continued to have a poor prognosis for the last few decades in spite of recent advances in different imaging modalities mainly due to difficulty in early diagnosis and aggressive biological behavior. Early PDAC can be missed on CT due to similar attenuation relative to the normal pancreas, small size, or hidden location in the uncinate process. Tumor resectability and its contingency on the vascular invasion most commonly assessed with multi-phasic thin-slice CT is a continuously changing concept, particularly in the era of frequent neoadjuvant therapy. Coexistent celiac artery stenosis may affect the surgical plan in patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy. In this review, we discuss the challenges related to the imaging of PDAC. These include radiological and clinical subtleties of the tumor, evolving imaging criteria for tumor resectability, preoperative diagnosis of accompanying celiac artery stenosis, and post-neoadjuvant therapy imaging. For each category, the key imaging features and potential pitfalls on cross-sectional imaging will be discussed. Also, we will describe the imaging discriminators of potential mimickers of PDAC.
Sex-specific clustering of metabolic risk factors and cancer risk: a longitudinal study in Iran
Authors: Ramezankhani Azra , Azizi Fereidoun , Hadaegh Farzad 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Background
Cancer is a major cause of death in low- and middle-income countries. A large number of studies have shown that some of the metabolic risk factors (MRFs) tend to cluster in individuals. We examined the synergistic effects of multiple MRFs and cancer risk among Iranian adults.

Methods
Among 8593 (3929 men) participants aged ≥ 30 years, the self-organizing map (SOM) was applied to clustering of four MRFs including high fasting plasma glucose (HFPG), high total cholesterol (HTC), high systolic blood pressure (HSBP), and high body mass index (HBMI). The Cox proportional hazards model was used to investigate the association between clusters with cancer incidence during a median of 14.0 years of follow-up.

Results
During the study period, 265 new cases of cancer were identified among participants at risk. The incidence density rate was 2.5 per 1000 person years in total population. About 32 and 40% of men and women, respectively, had three or four MRFs. We identified seven clusters of MRFs in both men and women. In both genders, MRFs were clustered in those with older age. Further, inverse associations were found between current smoking in men, and education level and passive smoking in women and clustering of MRFs. In men, a cluster with 100% HSBP and HBMI had the highest risk for overall cancer. While, among women, a cluster with 100% HFPG and 93% HBMI yielded the highest risk for cancer. The risk was decreased when HBMI accompanied by HTC.

Conclusions
Clustering patterns may reflect underlying link between MRFs and cancer and could potentially facilitate tailored health promotion interventions.
Alterations of neural network organization during REM sleep in women: implication for sex differences in vulnerability to mood disorders
Authors: Hein Matthieu , Lanquart Jean-Pol , Loas Gwénolé , Hubain Philippe , Linkowski Paul 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Background
Sleep plays an important role in vulnerability to mood disorders. However, despite the existence of sex differences in vulnerability to mood disorders, no study has yet investigated the sex effect on sleep network organization and its potential involvement in vulnerability to mood disorders. The aim of our study was to empirically investigate the sex effect on network organization during REM and slow-wave sleep using the effective connectivity measured by Granger causality.

Methods
Polysomnographic data from 44 healthy individuals (28 men and 16 women) recruited prospectively were analysed. To obtain the 19 × 19 connectivity matrix of all possible pairwise combinations of electrodes by Granger causality method from our EEG data, we used the Toolbox MVGC multivariate Granger causality. The computation of the network measures was realized by importing these connectivity matrices into EEGNET Toolbox.

Results
In men and women, all small-world coefficients obtained are compatible with a small-world network organization during REM and slow-wave sleep. However, compared to men, women present greater small-world coefficients during REM sleep as well as for all EEG bands during this sleep stage, which indicates the presence of a small-world network organization less marked during REM sleep as well as for all EEG bands during this sleep stage in women. In addition, in women, these small-world coefficients during REM sleep as well as for all EEG bands during this sleep stage are positively correlated with the presence of subclinical symptoms of depression.

Conclusions
Thus, the highlighting of these sex differences in network organization during REM sleep indicates the presence of differences in the global and local processing of information during sleep between women and men. In addition, this small-world network organization less marked during REM sleep appears to be a marker of vulnerability to mood disorders specific to women, which opens up new perspectives in understanding sex differences in the occurrence of mood disorders.
Angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor prevents skeletal muscle fibrosis in myocardial infarction mice
Authors: Kakutani Naoya , Takada Shingo , Nambu Hideo , Matsumoto Junichi , Furihata Takaaki , Yokota Takashi , Fukushima Arata , Kinugawa Shintaro 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Background
Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β)-Smad2/3 is the major signaling pathway of fibrosis, which is characterized by the excessive production and accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) components, including collagen. Although the ECM is an essential component of skeletal muscle, fibrosis may be harmful to muscle function. On the other hand, our previous studies have shown that levels of angiotensin II, which acts upstream of TGF-β-Smad2/3 signaling, is increased in mice with myocardial infarction (MI). In this study, we found higher skeletal muscle fibrosis in MI mice compared with control mice, and we investigated the mechanisms involved therein. Moreover, we administered an inhibitor based on the above mechanism and investigated its preventive effects on skeletal muscle fibrosis.

Methods
Male C57BL/6 J mice with MI were created, and sham-operated mice were used as controls. The time course of skeletal muscle fibrosis post-MI was analyzed by picrosirius-red staining (days 1, 3, 7, and 14). Mice were then divided into 3 groups: sham + vehicle (Sham + Veh), MI + Veh, and MI + lisinopril (an angiotensin-converting enzyme [ACE] inhibitor, 20 mg/kg body weight/day in drinking water; MI + Lis). Lis or Veh was administered from immediately after the surgery to 14 days postsurgery.

Results
Skeletal muscle fibrosis was significantly increased in MI mice compared with sham mice from 3 to 14 days postsurgery. Although mortality was lower in the MI + Lis mice than the MI + Veh mice, there was no difference in cardiac function between the 2 groups at 14 days. Skeletal muscle fibrosis and hydroxyproline (a key marker of collagen content) were significantly increased in MI + Veh mice compared with the Sham + Veh mice. Consistent with these results, protein expression of TGF-β and phosphorylated Smad2/3 in the skeletal muscle during the early time points after surgery (days 1–7 postsurgery) and blood angiotensin II at 14 days postsurgery was increased in MI mice compared with sham mice. These impairments were improved in MI + Lis mice, without any effects on spontaneous physical activity, muscle strength, muscle weight, and blood pressure.

Conclusions
ACE inhibitor administration prevents increased skeletal muscle fibrosis during the early phase after MI. Our findings indicate a new therapeutic target for ameliorating skeletal muscle abnormalities in heart diseases.
A pan-cancer analysis of the clinical and genetic portraits of somatostatin receptor expressing tumor as a potential target of peptide receptor imaging and therapy
Authors: Lee Hyunjong , Suh Minseok , Choi Hongyoon , Ha Seunggyun , Paeng Jin Chul , Cheon Gi Jeong , Kang Keon Wook , Lee Dong Soo 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Purpose
Although somatostatin receptor (SST) is a promising theranostic target and is widely expressed in tumors of various organs, the indication for therapies targeting SST is limited to typical gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). Thus, broadening the scope of the current clinical application of peptide receptor radiotherapy (PRRT) can be supported by a better understanding of the landscape of SST-expressing tumors.

Methods
SST expression levels were assessed in data from The Cancer Genome Atlas across 10,701 subjects representing 32 cancer types. As the major target of PRRT is SST subtype 2 (SST2), correlation analyses between the pan-cancer profiles, including clinical and genetic features, and SST2 level were conducted. The median SST2 expression level of pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma (PCPG) samples was used as the threshold to define “high-SST2 tumors.” The prognostic value of SST2 in each cancer subtype was evaluated by using Cox proportional regression analysis.

Results
We constructed a resource of SST expression patterns associated with clinicopathologic features and genomic alterations. It provides an interactive tool to analyze SST expression patterns in various cancer types. As a result, eight of the 31 cancer subtypes other than PCPG had more than 5% of tumors with high-SST2 expression. Low-grade glioma (LGG) showed the highest proportion of high-SST2 tumors, followed by breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA). LGG showed different SST2 levels according to tumor grade and histology. IDH1 mutation was significantly associated with high-SST2 status. In BRCA, the SST2 level was different according to the hormone receptor status. High-SST2 status was significantly associated with good prognosis in LGG patients. High-SST2 status showed a trend for association with poor prognosis in triple-negative breast cancer subjects.

Conclusion
A broad range of SST2 expression was observed across diverse cancer subtypes. The SST2 expression level showed a significant association with genomic and clinical aspects across cancers, especially in LGG and BRCA. These findings extend our knowledge base to diversify the indications for PRRT as well as SST imaging.
Senolytic compounds control a distinct fate of androgen receptor agonist- and antagonist-induced cellular senescent LNCaP prostate cancer cells
Authors: Pungsrinont Thanakorn , Sutter Malika Franziska , Ertingshausen Maren C. C. M. , Lakshmana Gopinath , Kokal Miriam , Khan Amir Saeed , Baniahmad Aria 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Background
The benefit of inducing cellular senescence as a tumor suppressive strategy remains questionable due to the senescence-associated secretory phenotype. Hence, studies and development of senolytic compounds that induce cell death in senescent cells have recently emerged. Senescent cells are hypothesized to exhibit different upregulated pro-survival/anti-apoptotic networks depending on the senescent inducers. This might limit the effect of a particular senolytic compound that targets rather only a specific pathway. Interestingly, cellular senescence in prostate cancer (PCa) cells can be induced by either androgen receptor (AR) agonists at supraphysiological androgen level (SAL) used in bipolar androgen therapy or by AR antagonists. This challenges to define ligand-specific senolytic compounds.

Results
Here, we first induced cellular senescence by treating androgen-sensitive PCa LNCaP cells with either SAL or the AR antagonist Enzalutamide (ENZ). Subsequently, cells were incubated with the HSP90 inhibitor Ganetespib (GT), the Bcl-2 family inhibitor ABT263, or the Akt inhibitor MK2206 to analyze senolysis. GT and ABT263 are known senolytic compounds. We observed that GT exhibits senolytic activity specifically in SAL-pretreated PCa cells. Mechanistically, GT treatment results in reduction of AR, Akt, and phospho-S6 (p-S6) protein levels. Surprisingly, ABT263 lacks senolytic effect in both AR agonist- and antagonist-pretreated cells. ABT263 treatment does not affect AR, Akt, or S6 protein levels. Treatment with MK2206 does not reduce AR protein level and, as expected, potently inhibits Akt phosphorylation. However, ENZ-induced cellular senescent cells undergo apoptosis by MK2206, whereas SAL-treated cells are resistant. In line with this, we reveal that the pro-survival p-S6 level is higher in SAL-induced cellular senescent PCa cells compared to ENZ-treated cells. These data indicate a difference in the agonist- or antagonist-induced cellular senescence and suggest a novel role of MK2206 as a senolytic agent preferentially for AR antagonist-treated cells.

Conclusion
Taken together, our data suggest that both AR agonist and antagonist induce cellular senescence but differentially upregulate a pro-survival signaling which preferentially sensitize androgen-sensitive PCa LNCaP cells to a specific senolytic compound.
Systematic review and literature appraisal on methodology of conducting and reporting critical-care echocardiography studies: a report from the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine PRICES expert panel
Authors: Huang S. , Sanfilippo F. , Herpain A. , Balik M. , Chew M. , Clau-Terré F. , Corredor C. , De Backer D. , Fletcher N. , Geri G. , Mekontso-Dessap A. , McLean A. , Morelli A. , Orde S. , Petrinic T. , Slama M. , van der Horst I. C. C. , Vignon P. , Mayo P. , Vieillard-Baron A. 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
Background
The echocardiography working group of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine recognized the need to provide structured guidance for future CCE research methodology and reporting based on a systematic appraisal of the current literature. Here is reported this systematic appraisal.

Methods
We conducted a systematic review, registered on the Prospero database. A total of 43 items of common interest to all echocardiography studies were initially listed by the experts, and other “topic-specific” items were separated into five main categories of interest (left ventricular systolic function, LVSF n = 15, right ventricular function, RVF n = 18, left ventricular diastolic function, LVDF n = 15, fluid management, FM n = 7, and advanced echocardiography techniques, AET n = 17). We evaluated the percentage of items reported per study and the fraction of studies reporting a single item.

Results
From January 2000 till December 2017 a total of 209 articles were included after systematic search and screening, 97 for LVSF, 48 for RVF, 51 for LVDF, 36 for FM and 24 for AET. Shock and ARDS were relatively common among LVSF articles (both around 15%) while ARDS comprised 25% of RVF articles. Transthoracic echocardiography was the main echocardiography mode, in 87% of the articles for AET topic, followed by 81% for FM, 78% for LVDF, 70% for LVSF and 63% for RVF. The percentage of items per study as well as the fraction of study reporting an item was low or very low, except for FM. As an illustration, the left ventricular size was only reported by 56% of studies in the LVSF topic, and half studies assessing RVF reported data on pulmonary artery systolic pressure.

Conclusion
This analysis confirmed sub-optimal reporting of several items listed by an expert panel. The analysis will help the experts in the development of guidelines for CCE study design and reporting.
The new spectral conjugate gradient method for large-scale unconstrained optimisation
Authors: Wang Li , Cao Mingyuan , Xing Funa , Yang Yueting 
Published: April 2020

AbstractThe spectral conjugate gradient methods are very interesting and have been proved to be effective for strictly convex quadratic minimisation. In this paper, a new spectral conjugate gradient method is proposed to solve large-scale unconstrained optimisation problems. Motivated by the advantages of approximate optimal stepsize strategy used in the gradient method, we design a new scheme for the choices of the spectral and conjugate parameters. Furthermore, the new search direction satisfies the spectral property and sufficient descent condition. Under some suitable assumptions, the global convergence of the developed method is established. Numerical comparisons show better behaviour of the proposed method with respect to some existing methods for a set of 130 test problems.
Global structure of one-sign solutions for a simply supported beam equation
Authors: Yan Dongliang , Ma Ruyun , Su Xiaoxiao 
Published: April 2020

AbstractIn this paper, we consider the nonlinear eigenvalue problem
$$\begin{gathered} u''''= \lambda h(t)f(u),\quad 0< t< 1, \\ u(0)=u(1)=u''(0)=u''(1)=0, \\ \end{gathered} $$u′′′′=λh(t)f(u),0<t<1,u(0)=u(1)=u″(0)=u″(1)=0, where $h\in C([0,1], (0,\infty))$h∈C([0,1],(0,∞)); $f\in C(\mathbb{R},\mathbb{R})$f∈C(R,R) and $sf(s)>0$sf(s)>0 for $s\neq0$s≠0, and $f_{0}=f_{\infty}=0$f0=f∞=0, $f_{0}=\lim_{|s|\rightarrow0}f(s)/s$f0=lim|s|→0f(s)/s, $f_{\infty}=\lim_{|s|\rightarrow\infty}f(s)/s$f∞=lim|s|→∞f(s)/s. We investigate the global structure of one-sign solutions by using bifurcation techniques.
Existence of positive solution for BVP of nonlinear fractional differential equation with integral boundary conditions
Authors: Li Min , Sun Jian-Ping , Zhao Ya-Hong 
Published: April 2020

AbstractThis paper is concerned with the following boundary value problem of nonlinear fractional differential equation with integral boundary conditions:
$$ \textstyle\begin{cases} ({}^{C}D_{0+}^{q}u)(t)+f(t,u(t))=0,\quad t\in [0,1], \\ u^{\prime \prime }(0)=0, \\ \alpha u(0)-\beta u^{\prime }(0)=\int _{0}^{1}h_{1}(s)u(s)\,ds, \\ \gamma u(1)+\delta ({}^{C}D_{0+}^{\sigma }u)(1) =\int _{0}^{1}h_{2}(s)u(s)\,ds, \end{cases} $${(CD0+qu)(t)+f(t,u(t))=0,t∈[0,1],u″(0)=0,αu(0)−βu′(0)=∫01h1(s)u(s)ds,γu(1)+δ(CD0+σu)(1)=∫01h2(s)u(s)ds, where $2< q\leq 3$2<q≤3, $0<\sigma \leq 1$0<σ≤1, $\alpha , \gamma , \delta \geq 0$α,γ,δ≥0, and $\beta >0$β>0 satisfying $0<\rho :=(\alpha +\beta )\gamma + \frac{\alpha \delta }{\varGamma (2-\sigma )}<\beta [\gamma + \frac{\delta \varGamma (q)}{\varGamma (q-\sigma )} ]$0<ρ:=(α+β)γ+αδΓ(2−σ)<β[γ+δΓ(q)Γ(q−σ)]. ${}^{C}D_{0+}^{q}$D0+qC denotes the standard Caputo fractional derivative. First, Green’s function of the corresponding linear boundary value problem is constructed. Next, some useful properties of the Green’s function are obtained. Finally, existence results of at least one positive solution for the above problem are established by imposing some suitable conditions on f and $h_{i}$hi ($i=1,2$i=1,2). The method employed is Guo–Krasnoselskii’s fixed point theorem. An example is also included to illustrate the main results of this paper.
Persistence and extinction of a stochastic predator–prey model with modified Leslie–Gower and Holling-type II schemes
Authors: Zhou Dengxia , Liu Meng , Liu Zhijun 
Published: April 2020

AbstractIn this paper, we use an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process to describe the environmental stochasticity and propose a stochastic predator–prey model with modified Leslie–Gower and Holling-type II schemes. For each species, sharp sufficient conditions for persistence in the mean and extinction are respectively obtained. The results demonstrate that the persistence and extinction of the species have close relationships with the environmental stochasticity. In addition, the theoretical results are numerically illustrated by some simulations.
Explicit solutions of initial value problems for systems of linear Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with constant delay
Authors: Hristova S. , Agarwal Ravi , O’Regan D. 
Published: April 2020

AbstractA system of linear Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with constant delay is studied. The initial condition is set up similar to the case of the ordinary derivative. Explicit formulas for the solutions are obtained for various initial functions.
Generalization of intensity distribution of medical images using GANs
Authors: Lee Dong-Ho , Li Yan , Shin Byeong-Seok 
Published: April 2020

Abstract
The performance of a CNN based medical-image classification network depends on the intensities of the trained images. Therefore, it is necessary to generalize medical images of various intensities against degradation of performance. For lesion classification, features of generalized images should be carefully maintained. To maintain the performance of the medical image classification network and minimize the loss of features, we propose a method using a generative adversarial network (GAN) as a generator to adapt the arbitrary intensity distribution to the specific intensity distribution of the training set. We also select CycleGAN and UNIT to train unpaired medical image data sets. The following was done to evaluate each method’s performance: the similarities between the generalized image and the original were measured via the structural similarity index (SSIM) and histogram, and the original domain data set was passed to a classifier that trained only the original domain images for accuracy comparisons. The results show that the performance evaluation of the generalized images is better than that of the originals, confirming that our proposed method is a simple but powerful solution to the performance degradation of a classification network.