Placental Vacuolar ATPase Function Is a Key Link between Multiple Causes of Preeclampsia

Preeclampsia, a relatively common pregnancy disorder, is one of the major causes of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. Despite numerous research, the etiology of this syndrome remains not well understood as the pathogenesis of preeclampsia is complex, involving interaction between genetic, immunologic, and environmental factors. Preeclampsia, originating in placenta abnormalities, is induced by the circulating factors derived from the abnormal placenta. Recent work has identified various molecular mechanisms related to placenta development, including renin-angiotensin system, 1, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D, and lipoxin A4. Interestingly, advances suggest that vacuolar ATPase, a key molecule in placentation, is closely associated with them. Therefore, this intriguing molecule may represent an important link between various causes of preeclampsia. Here, we review that vacuolar ATPase works as a key link between multiple causes of preeclampsia and discuss the potential molecular mechanisms. The novel findings outlined in this review may provide promising explanations for the causation of preeclampsia and a rationale for future therapeutic interventions for this condition

HFORD: High-Fidelity and Occlusion-Robust De-identification for Face Privacy Protection

With the popularity of smart devices and the development of computer vision technology, concerns about face privacy protection are growing. The face de-identification technique is a practical way to solve the identity protection problem. The existing facial de-identification methods have revealed several problems, including the impact on the realism of anonymized results when faced with occlusions and the inability to maintain identity-irrelevant details in anonymized results. We present a High-Fidelity and Occlusion-Robust De-identification (HFORD) method to deal with these issues. This approach can disentangle identities and attributes while preserving image-specific details such as background, facial features (e.g., wrinkles), and lighting, even in occluded scenes. To disentangle the latent codes in the GAN inversion space, we introduce an Identity Disentanglement Module (IDM). This module selects the latent codes that are closely related to the identity. It further separates the latent codes into identity-related codes and attribute-related codes, enabling the network to preserve attributes while only modifying the identity. To ensure the preservation of image details and enhance the network's robustness to occlusions, we propose an Attribute Retention Module (ARM). This module adaptively preserves identity-irrelevant details and facial occlusions and blends them into the generated results in a modulated manner. Extensive experiments show that our method has higher quality, better detail fidelity, and stronger occlusion robustness than other face de-identification methods

Diff-Privacy: Diffusion-based Face Privacy Protection

Privacy protection has become a top priority as the proliferation of AI techniques has led to widespread collection and misuse of personal data. Anonymization and visual identity information hiding are two important facial privacy protection tasks that aim to remove identification characteristics from facial images at the human perception level. However, they have a significant difference in that the former aims to prevent the machine from recognizing correctly, while the latter needs to ensure the accuracy of machine recognition. Therefore, it is difficult to train a model to complete these two tasks simultaneously. In this paper, we unify the task of anonymization and visual identity information hiding and propose a novel face privacy protection method based on diffusion models, dubbed Diff-Privacy. Specifically, we train our proposed multi-scale image inversion module (MSI) to obtain a set of SDM format conditional embeddings of the original image. Based on the conditional embeddings, we design corresponding embedding scheduling strategies and construct different energy functions during the denoising process to achieve anonymization and visual identity information hiding. Extensive experiments have been conducted to validate the effectiveness of our proposed framework in protecting facial privacy.Comment: 17page

Effects of Inter-Stimulus Interval on Speech-Evoked Frequency-Following Response in Elderly Adults

Background: The speech-evoked frequency following response (FFR) has shown to be useful in assessing complex auditory processing abilities and in different age groups. While many aspects of FFR have been studied extensively, the effect of timing, as measured by inter-stimulus-interval (ISI), especially in the older adult population, has yet to be thoroughly investigated. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of different ISIs on speech evoked FFR in older and younger adults who speak a tonal language, and to investigate whether the older adults’ FFR were more susceptible to the change in ISI. Materials and Methods: Twenty-two normal hearing participants were recruited in our study, including 11 young adult participants and 11 elderly participants. An Intelligent Hearing Systems Smart EP evoke potential system was used to record the FFR in four ISI conditions (40, 80, 120 and 160 ms). A recorded natural speech token with a falling tone /yi/ was used as the stimulus. Two indices, stimulus-to-response correlation coefficient and pitch strength, were used to quantify the FFR responses. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the differences in different age groups and different ISI conditions. Results: There was no significant difference in stimulus-to-response correlation coefficient and pitch strength among the different ISI conditions, in either age groups. Older adults appeared to have weaker FFR for all ISI conditions when compared to their younger adult counterparts. Conclusion: Shorter ISIs did not result in worse FFRs from older adults or younger adults. For speech-evoked FFR using a recorded natural speech token that is 250 ms in length, an ISI of as short as 40 ms appeared to be sufficient and effective to record FFR for elderly adults

Voice Pitch Elicited Frequency Following Response in Chinese Elderlies

Background: Perceptual and electrophysiological studies have found reduced speech discrimination in quiet and noisy environment, delayed neural timing, decreased neural synchrony, and decreased temporal processing ability in elderlies, even those with normal hearing. However, recent studies have also demonstrated that language experience and auditory training enhance the temporal dynamics of sound encoding in the auditory brainstem response. The purpose of this study was to explore the pitch processing ability at the brainstem level in an aging population that has a tonal language background.Method: Mandarin speaking younger (n=12) and older (n=12) adults were recruited for this study. All participants had normal audiometric test results and normal suprathreshold click-evoked auditory brainstem responses (ABR). To record Frequency Following Responses (FFR) elicited by Mandarin lexical tones, two Mandarin Chinese syllables with different fundamental frequency pitch contours (Flat Tone and Falling Tone) were presented at 70 dB SPL. Fundamental frequencies (f0) of both the stimulus and the responses were extracted and compared to individual brainstem responses. Two indices were used to examine different aspects of pitch processing ability at the brainstem level: Pitch Strength and Pitch Correlation. Results: Lexical tone elicited FFR were overall weaker in the older adult group compared to their younger adult counterpart. Measured by Pitch Strength and Pitch Correlation, statistically significant group differences were only found when the tone with a falling f0 (Falling Tone) were used as the stimulus.Conclusion: Results of this study demonstrated that in a tonal language speaking population, pitch processing ability at the brainstem level of older adults are not as strong and robust as their younger counterparts. Findings of this study are consistent with previous reports on brainstem responses of older adults whose native language is English. On the other hand, lexical tone elicited FFRs have been shown to correlate with the length of language exposure. Older adults’ degraded responses in our study may also be due to that, the Mandarin speaking older adults’ long term exposure somewhat counteracted the negative impact on aging and helped maintain, or at least reduced, the degradation rate in their temporal processing capacity at the brainstem level

Voice pitch elicited frequency following response in Chinese elderlies

Background: Perceptual and electrophysiological studies have found reduced speech discrimination in quiet and noisy environment, delayed neural timing, decreased neural synchrony, and decreased temporal processing ability in elderlies, even those with normal hearing. However, recent studies have also demonstrated that language experience and auditory training enhance the temporal dynamics of sound encoding in the auditory brainstem response (ABR). The purpose of this study was to explore the pitch processing ability at the brainstem level in an aging population that has a tonal language background. Method: Mandarin speaking younger (n = 12) and older (n = 12) adults were recruited for this study. All participants had normal audiometric test results and normal suprathreshold click-evoked ABR. To record frequency following responses (FFRs) elicited by Mandarin lexical tones, two Mandarin Chinese syllables with different fundamental frequency pitch contours (Flat Tone and Falling Tone) were presented at 70 dB SPL. Fundamental frequencies (f0) of both the stimulus and the responses were extracted and compared to individual brainstem responses. Two indices were used to examine different aspects of pitch processing ability at the brainstem level: Pitch Strength and Pitch Correlation. Results: Lexical tone elicited FFR were overall weaker in the older adult group compared to their younger adult counterpart. Measured by Pitch Strength and Pitch Correlation, statistically significant group differences were only found when the tone with a falling f0 (Falling Tone) were used as the stimulus. Conclusion: Results of this study demonstrated that in a tonal language speaking population, pitch processing ability at the brainstem level of older adults are not as strong and robust as their younger counterparts. Findings of this study are consistent with previous reports on brainstem responses of older adults whose native language is English. On the other hand, lexical tone elicited FFRs have been shown to correlate with the length of language exposure. Older adults\u27 degraded responses in our study may also be due to that, the Mandarin speaking older adults\u27 long term exposure somewhat counteracted the negative impact on aging and helped maintain, or at least reduced, the degradation rate in their temporal processing capacity at the brainstem level

Derivation and Characterization of Hepatic Progenitor Cells from Human Embryonic Stem Cells

The derivation of hepatic progenitor cells from human embryonic stem (hES) cells is of value both in the study of early human liver organogenesis and in the creation of an unlimited source of donor cells for hepatocyte transplantation therapy. Here, we report for the first time the generation of hepatic progenitor cells derived from hES cells. Hepatic endoderm cells were generated by activating FGF and BMP pathways and were then purified by fluorescence activated cell sorting using a newly identified surface marker, N-cadherin. After co-culture with STO feeder cells, these purified hepatic endoderm cells yielded hepatic progenitor colonies, which possessed the proliferation potential to be cultured for an extended period of more than 100 days. With extensive expansion, they co-expressed the hepatic marker AFP and the biliary lineage marker KRT7 and maintained bipotential differentiation capacity. They were able to differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells, which expressed ALB and AAT, and into cholangiocyte-like cells, which formed duct-like cyst structures, expressed KRT19 and KRT7, and acquired epithelial polarity. In conclusion, this is the first report of the generation of proliferative and bipotential hepatic progenitor cells from hES cells. These hES cell–derived hepatic progenitor cells could be effectively used as an in vitro model for studying the mechanisms of hepatic stem/progenitor cell origin, self-renewal and differentiation

Effects of Inter-Stimulus Interval on Speech-Evoked Frequency-Following Response in Elderly Adults

Background: The speech-evoked frequency following response (FFR) has shown to be useful in assessing complex auditory processing abilities and in different age groups. While many aspects of FFR have been studied extensively, the effect of timing, as measured by inter-stimulus-interval (ISI), especially in the older adult population, has yet to be thoroughly investigated.Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of different ISIs on speech evoked FFR in older and younger adults who speak a tonal language, and to investigate whether the older adults’ FFR were more susceptible to the change in ISI.Materials and Methods: Twenty-two normal hearing participants were recruited in our study, including 11 young adult participants and 11 elderly participants. An Intelligent Hearing Systems Smart EP evoke potential system was used to record the FFR in four ISI conditions (40, 80, 120 and 160 ms). A recorded natural speech token with a falling tone /yi/ was used as the stimulus. Two indices, stimulus-to-response correlation coefficient and pitch strength, were used to quantify the FFR responses. Two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the differences in different age groups and different ISI conditions.Results: There was no significant difference in stimulus-to-response correlation coefficient and pitch strength among the different ISI conditions, in either age groups. Older adults appeared to have weaker FFR for all ISI conditions when compared to their younger adult counterparts.Conclusion: Shorter ISIs did not result in worse FFRs from older adults or younger adults. For speech-evoked FFR using a recorded natural speech token that is 250 ms in length, an ISI of as short as 40 ms appeared to be sufficient and effective to record FFR for elderly adults

Genetic mapping of AhVt1, a novel genetic locus that confers the variegated testa color in cultivated peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) and its utilization for marker-assisted selection

IntroductionPeanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an important cash crop worldwide. Compared with the ordinary peanut with pure pink testa, peanut with variegated testa color has attractive appearance and a higher market value. In addition, the variegated testa represents a distinct regulation pattern of anthocyanin accumulation in integument cells.MethodsIn order to identify the genetic locus underlying variegated testa color in peanut, two populations were constructed from the crosses between Fuhua 8 (pure-pink testa) and Wucai (red on white variegated testa), Quanhonghua 1 (pure-red testa) and Wucai, respectively. Genetic analysis and bulked sergeant analysis sequencing were applied to detect and identify the genetic locus for variegated testa color. Marker-assisted selection was used to develop new variegated testa peanut lines.ResultsAs a result, all the seeds harvested from the F1 individuals of both populations showed the variegated testa type with white trace. Genetic analysis revealed that the pigmentation of colored region in red on white variegated testa was controlled by a previous reported gene AhRt1, while the formation of white region (un-pigmented region) in variegated testa was controlled by another single genetic locus. This locus, named as AhVt1 (Arachis hypogaea Variegated Testa 1), was preliminary mapped on chromosome 08 through bulked sergeant analysis sequencing. Using a secondary mapping population derived from the cross between Fuhua 8 and Wucai, AhVt1 was further mapped to a 1.89-Mb genomic interval by linkage analysis, and several potential genes associated with the uneven distribution of anthocyanin, such as MADS-box, MYB, and Chalcone synthase-like protein, were harbored in the region. Moreover, the molecular markers closely linked to the AhVt1 were developed, and the new variegated testa peanut lines were obtained with the help of marker-assisted selection.ConclusionOur findings will accelerate the breeding program for developing new peanut varieties with “colorful” testa colors and laid a foundation for map-based cloning of gene responsible for variegated testa

Direct Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis of Oxindole-Derived δ-Hydroxy-β-ketoesters by Aldol Reactions

Direct asymmetric synthesis of δ-hydroxy-β-ketoesters was accomplished via regio- and enantioselective aldol reactions of β-ketoesters with isatins catalyzed by cinchona alkaloid thiourea derivatives. The C–C bond formation of the reactions occurred only at the γ-position of the β-ketoesters. Reaction progress monitoring and product stability analyses under the conditions that included the catalyst indicated that the γ-position reaction products were formed kinetically. Various δ-hydroxy-β-ketoesters bearing 3-alkyl-3-hydroxyoxindole cores relevant to the development of bioactive molecules were synthesized