Ethanol extract of Hedyotis diffusa willd. induction of apoptosis via PI3K/Akt and XIAP pathways in human leukemic THP-1 cells

Hedyotis diffusa (H. diffusa) Willd. is known to induce apoptosis in cancer cells. However, the molecular mechanism of its anti-cancer activity has not been fully elucidated. In this study, we found that the ethanol extract of H. diffusa Willd. (EEHDW) reduced cell viability and induced apoptosis in a dose- and time-dependent manner in human leukemic THP-1 cells. The induction of apoptosis was also accompanied by the down regulation of PI3K/Akt and the inhibitor of apoptosis protein (IAP) family proteins. Moreover, we observed that EEHDW treatment resulted in activation of caspase-3, which may partly explain the anti-cancer activity of EEHDW.Key words: Hedyotis diffusa Willd., THP-1, apoptosis, caspase

Using Linguistic Features to Estimate Suicide Probability of Chinese Microblog Users

If people with high risk of suicide can be identified through social media like microblog, it is possible to implement an active intervention system to save their lives. Based on this motivation, the current study administered the Suicide Probability Scale(SPS) to 1041 weibo users at Sina Weibo, which is a leading microblog service provider in China. Two NLP (Natural Language Processing) methods, the Chinese edition of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) lexicon and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), are used to extract linguistic features from the Sina Weibo data. We trained predicting models by machine learning algorithm based on these two types of features, to estimate suicide probability based on linguistic features. The experiment results indicate that LDA can find topics that relate to suicide probability, and improve the performance of prediction. Our study adds value in prediction of suicidal probability of social network users with their behaviors

A Multichannel DNA SoC for Rapid Point-of-Care Gene Detection

Published versio

Detached eddy simulation of turbulent flow around square and circular cylinders on Cartesian cut cells

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Square and circular cylinders in three-dimensional turbulent flows are studied numerically using the LES and DES turbulence models. One aim of the present study is to implement the LES and DES turbulence models in a cell-centered finite volume method (FVM) developed for solving the Navier-Stokes equations on Cartesian cut cells. The Cartesian cut cell approach is known to be robust for problems in geometrically complex domains with fixed or moving boundaries. For the purpose of validating the present numerical model, the current flow past fixed square and circular cylinders at moderate Reynolds numbers is tested first. Comparison of the computed results with experimental data reveals that the DES models are superior to the conventional LES and RANS models. The second aim of the present study is to assess the performance of different RANS based DES turbulence models. By means of the comparison of results obtained with the 0-equation mixing-length, 1-equation S-A and 2-equation k-ω based DES models for the flow over the same circular cylinder, some recommendations are proposed. According to the present study, in terms of accuracy the 1-equation S-A based DES model is very promising. Beside this, if the computational cost is the main concern, the 0-equation mixing-length based DES model might be an ideal option, achieving a good balance between accuracy and efficiency

RoboCup 2D Soccer Simulation League: Evaluation Challenges

We summarise the results of RoboCup 2D Soccer Simulation League in 2016 (Leipzig), including the main competition and the evaluation round. The evaluation round held in Leipzig confirmed the strength of RoboCup-2015 champion (WrightEagle, i.e. WE2015) in the League, with only eventual finalists of 2016 competition capable of defeating WE2015. An extended, post-Leipzig, round-robin tournament which included the top 8 teams of 2016, as well as WE2015, with over 1000 games played for each pair, placed WE2015 third behind the champion team (Gliders2016) and the runner-up (HELIOS2016). This establishes WE2015 as a stable benchmark for the 2D Simulation League. We then contrast two ranking methods and suggest two options for future evaluation challenges. The first one, "The Champions Simulation League", is proposed to include 6 previous champions, directly competing against each other in a round-robin tournament, with the view to systematically trace the advancements in the League. The second proposal, "The Global Challenge", is aimed to increase the realism of the environmental conditions during the simulated games, by simulating specific features of different participating countries.Comment: 12 pages, RoboCup-2017, Nagoya, Japan, July 201

Effects of modifying the electrode placement and pulse width on cognitive side effects with unilateral ECT: A pilot randomised controlled study with computational modelling

Background: The electrode placement and pulse width for electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are important treatment parameters associated with ECT related retrograde memory side-effects. Modification of these parameters with right unilateral (RUL) ECT may have utility for further reducing these side-effects. Objective: This study explored use of the frontoparietal (FP) placement for reducing retrograde memory side effects with ECT. We hypothesised that superior retrograde memory outcomes would occur with FP compared to temporoparietal (TP) placement and with ultrabrief (UB: 0.3 ms) compared to brief pulse (BP: 1.0 ms) width ECT. Methods: In this randomised cross-over, double-blinded study, participants received a single treatment of BP TP, BP FP, UB TP and UB FP ECT. Neuropsychological testing was conducted prior to and immediately following each treatment. Computational modelling was conducted to explore associations between E-fields in regions-of-interest associated with memory. Results: Nine participants completed the study. The FP placement was not superior to TP for retrograde memory outcomes. For both electrode placements UB pulse width was associated with significantly better visual retrograde memory compared to BP (p <.05). With TP ECT, higher E-fields in regions-of-interest were significantly associated with greater visual retrograde memory side-effects (hippocampi: r = −0.77, p =.04; inferior frontal gyri: r = −0.92, p <.01; middle frontal gyri: r = −0.84, p =.02). Conclusions: Modification of pulse-width had greater effects than electrode placement for reducing retrograde memory side-effects with RUL ECT. Preliminary findings suggested that higher E-fields may be associated with greater cognitive side-effects with ECT

Learning Shape Priors for Robust Cardiac MR Segmentation from Multi-view Images

© 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Cardiac MR image segmentation is essential for the morphological and functional analysis of the heart. Inspired by how experienced clinicians assess the cardiac morphology and function across multiple standard views (i.e. long- and short-axis views), we propose a novel approach which learns anatomical shape priors across different 2D standard views and leverages these priors to segment the left ventricular (LV) myocardium from short-axis MR image stacks. The proposed segmentation method has the advantage of being a 2D network but at the same time incorporates spatial context from multiple, complementary views that span a 3D space. Our method achieves accurate and robust segmentation of the myocardium across different short-axis slices (from apex to base), outperforming baseline models (e.g. 2D U-Net, 3D U-Net) while achieving higher data efficiency. Compared to the 2D U-Net, the proposed method reduces the mean Hausdorff distance (mm) from 3.24 to 2.49 on the apical slices, from 2.34 to 2.09 on the middle slices and from 3.62 to 2.76 on the basal slices on the test set, when only 10% of the training data was used

Light hadron, Charmonium(-like) and Bottomonium(-like) states

Hadron physics represents the study of strongly interacting matter in all its manifestations and the understanding of its properties and interactions. The interest on this field has been revitalized by the discovery of new light hadrons, charmonium- and bottomonium-like states. I review the most recent experimental results from different experiments.Comment: Presented at Lepton-Photon 2011, Mumbai, India; 21 pages, 18 figures; add more references; some correctio

Rhizome Severing Increases Root Lifespan of Leymus chinensis in a Typical Steppe of Inner Mongolia

Root lifespan is an important trait that determines plants' ability to acquire and conserve soil resources. There have been several studies investigating characteristics of root lifespan of both woody and herbaceous species. However, most of the studies have focused on non-clonal plants, and there have been little data on root lifespan for clonal plants that occur widely in temperate grasslands.We investigated the effects of rhizome severing on overall root lifespan of Leymus chinensis, a clonal, dominant grass species in the temperate steppe in northern China, in a 2-year field study using modified rhizotron technique. More specifically, we investigated the effects of rhizome severing on root lifespan of roots born in different seasons and distributed at different soil depths. Rhizome severing led to an increase in the overall root lifespan from 81 to 103 days. The increase in root lifespan exhibited spatial and temporal characteristics such that it increased lifespan for roots distributed in the top two soil layers and for roots born in summer and spring, but it had no effect on lifespan of roots in the deep soil layer and born in autumn. We also examined the effect of rhizome severing on carbohydrate and N contents in roots, and found that root carbohydrate and N contents were not affected by rhizome severing. Further, we found that root lifespan of Stipa krylovii and Artemisia frigida, two dominant, non-clonal species in the temperate steppe, was significantly longer (118 d) than that of L. chinensis (81 d), and this value became comparable to that of L. chinensis under rhizome severing (103 d).We found that root lifespan in dominant, clonal L. chinensis was shorter than for the dominant, non-clonal species of S. krylovii and A. frigida. There was a substantial increase in the root lifespan of L. chinensis in response to severing their rhizomes, and this increase in root lifespan exhibited temporal and spatial characteristics. These findings suggest that the presence of rhizomes is likely to account for the observed short lifespan of clonal plant species in the temperate steppe

A Tale of Two Current Sheets

I outline a new model of particle acceleration in the current sheet separating the closed from the open field lines in the force-free model of pulsar magnetospheres, based on reconnection at the light cylinder and "auroral" acceleration occurring in the return current channel that connects the light cylinder to the neutron star surface. I discuss recent studies of Pulsar Wind Nebulae, which find that pair outflow rates in excess of those predicted by existing theories of pair creation occur, and use those results to point out that dissipation of the magnetic field in a pulsar's wind upstream of the termination shock is restored to life as a viable model for the solution of the "$\sigma$" problem as a consequence of the lower wind 4-velocity implied by the larger mass loading.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, Invited Review, Proceedings of the "ICREA Workshop on The High-Energy Emission from Pulsars and their Systems", Sant Cugat, Spain, April 12-16, 201