Somatic mutations in FAT cadherin family members constitute an underrecognized subtype of colorectal adenocarcinoma with unique clinicopathologic features

BACKGROUND: The FAT cadherin family members (FAT1, FAT2, FAT3 and FAT4) are conserved tumor suppressors that are recurrently mutated in several types of human cancers, including colorectal carcinoma (CRC). AIM: To characterize the clinicopathologic features of CRC patients with somatic mutations in FAT cadherin family members. METHODS: We analyzed 526 CRC cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas PanCancer Atlas dataset. CRC samples were subclassified into 2 groups based on the presence or absence of somatic mutations in RESULTS: This CRC study cohort had frequent mutations in the CONCLUSION

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta +294T > C polymorphism and alcohol consumption on serum lipid levels

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta (<it>PPARD</it>) gene affects serum lipid profiles, but to what extent alcohol consumption interferes with this association remains unknown. The present study was undertaken to compare the association of <it>PPARD </it>+294T > C (rs2016520) polymorphism and serum lipid levels in the nondrinkers and drinkers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 685 unrelated nondrinkers and 497 drinkers aged 15-82 were randomly selected from our previous stratified randomized cluster samples. Genotyping of the <it>PPARD </it>+294T > C was performed by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism. Interactions of the <it>PPARD </it>+294T > C genotypes and alcohol consumption on serum lipid levels were detected by using a factorial regression analysis after controlling for potential confounders.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The levels of triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), apolipoprotein (Apo) A1, and the ratio of ApoA1 to ApoB were higher in drinkers than in nondrinkers (<it>P </it>< 0.05-0.001). There were no significant differences in the levels of total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and ApoB between the two groups (<it>P </it>> 0.05 for all). The frequencies of TT, TC and CC genotypes were 56.0%, 36.4% and 7.6% in nondrinkers, and 57.2%, 38.0% and 4.8% in drinkers (<it>P </it>> 0.05); respectively. The frequencies of T and C alleles were 74.2% and 25.8% in nondrinkers, and 76.2% and 23.8% in drinkers (<it>P </it>> 0.05); respectively. There was also no significant difference in the genotypic and allelic frequencies between males and females in both groups (<it>P </it>> 0.05 for all). The levels of TC in nondrinkers were different among the three genotypes (<it>P </it>= 0.01), the C allele carriers had higher serum TC levels than the C allele noncarriers. The levels of all seven lipid traits in drinkers were not different among the three genotypes (P > 0.05 for all). The interactions of <it>PPARD </it>+294T > C genotypes and alcohol consumption on serum lipid levels were not detected in the drinkers (<it>P ></it>0.05 for all). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that serum TC, HDL-C, LDL-C, ApoA1, and ApoB levels were correlated with genotypes in drinkers but not in nondrinkers (<it>P </it>< 0.05-0.01).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results suggest that the great majority of our study populations are beneficial from alcohol consumption. But there is no interaction between the <it>PPARD </it>+294T > C genotypes and alcohol consumption on serum lipid levels in the drinkers.</p

Model-Free Algorithm with Improved Sample Efficiency for Zero-Sum Markov Games

The problem of two-player zero-sum Markov games has recently attracted increasing interests in theoretical studies of multi-agent reinforcement learning (RL). In particular, for finite-horizon episodic Markov decision processes (MDPs), it has been shown that model-based algorithms can find an $\epsilon$-optimal Nash Equilibrium (NE) with the sample complexity of $O(H^3SAB/\epsilon^2)$, which is optimal in the dependence of the horizon $H$ and the number of states $S$ (where $A$ and $B$ denote the number of actions of the two players, respectively). However, none of the existing model-free algorithms can achieve such an optimality. In this work, we propose a model-free stage-based Q-learning algorithm and show that it achieves the same sample complexity as the best model-based algorithm, and hence for the first time demonstrate that model-free algorithms can enjoy the same optimality in the $H$ dependence as model-based algorithms. The main improvement of the dependency on $H$ arises by leveraging the popular variance reduction technique based on the reference-advantage decomposition previously used only for single-agent RL. However, such a technique relies on a critical monotonicity property of the value function, which does not hold in Markov games due to the update of the policy via the coarse correlated equilibrium (CCE) oracle. Thus, to extend such a technique to Markov games, our algorithm features a key novel design of updating the reference value functions as the pair of optimistic and pessimistic value functions whose value difference is the smallest in the history in order to achieve the desired improvement in the sample efficiency

Time at treatment of severe retinopathy of prematurity in China: recommendations for guidelines in more mature infants.

PURPOSE: To investigate the postmenstrual (PMA) age at treatment of severe retinopathy of prematurity (i.e. Type 1 prethreshold or threshold) in infants in a tertiary referral center in China. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: 76.6% (359/469) of infants were treated for threshold disease. 67.5% (317/469) of infants had a birth weight (BW) of 1250 g or above and almost 30% (126) had a gestational age (GA) of 32 weeks or above. There was little difference in the characteristics of infants treated for Type 1 prethreshold or threshold ROP. After controlling for GA, PMA age at treatment was highest in infants with BW ≥2000 g (mean PMA 40.3±4.4 weeks, p34 weeks, p<0.001). For every three weeks increase in GA there was a two-week increase in PMA at treatment (R2 = 0.20, p<0.001). The time at treatment of Type 1 prethreshold disease was similar to that for threshold disease i.e. chronological age 5.6∓7.4 weeks, or PMA 34.1∓40.2 weeks but the lower end of the 95% confidence interval for chronological age for Type 1 prethreshold disease among infants with BW ≥2000 g was 3.7 weeks (i.e. before the recommended interval of 4∓6 weeks after birth). SIGNIFICANCE: The Chinese guidelines regarding timing of the first examination are appropriate for infants with BW <2000 g, but more mature infants should be examined a little earlier, at 3 weeks after birth, in order to detect Type 1 prethreshold disease which has a better prognosis than threshold

On the Initial Exploration of Technical Word in Middle Chinese

Technical words spread into the lexical system of Middle Chinese gradually in due order. The diffusions can be divided into four stages: Firstly, technical words begin to spread into documents; Secondly, they spread into documents related to the former documents; Thirdly, they spread into common documents; Finally, they end the spread. The main characteristics of word spread correspond to the free speech creation, the elimination and selection of technical words, the related documents played the role of a bridge during the diffusions, and the division of the technical words and the faintness of the technical word flavour. Key words: technical words, diffusing of words, Middle Chinese Résumé La diffusion de la terminologie dans le système lexique du chinois antique moyen est un processus progressif, qui peut être divisé en quatre étapes : diffusion initiale dans le document écrit, diffusion à courte distance dans le document corrélatif du métier, diffusion totale dans le document général, l’épilogue de la diffusion dans le document écrit. Les caractéristiques respectives des quatre etapes : la création hautement libre de la langue ; la normalisation engend l’élimination et l’élection à grande échelle ; le document corrélatif du métier sert de pont pour la diffusion du terme ; la diffférenciation du vocabulaire après de maints sélections par la langue écrite anisi que l’effacement de la couleur du métier.. Mots-clés: la termilologie, la diffusion du vocabulaire, le chinois antique moyen 摘 要 專門詞語向中古漢語辭彙系統的擴散是一個循序漸進的過程。劃分為四個階段：向書面文獻的初始擴散、向行業關聯文獻的近距離擴散、向普通文獻的全面擴散、向書面文獻擴散的尾聲。各階段主要特點是：高度自由化的言語創新；規範整理導致大規模汰選；行業關聯文獻成為詞語擴散的橋樑；經書面語多次遴選後的詞語分化以及行業色彩的淡化。關鍵詞：專門詞語；詞語擴散；中古漢

Conceptualized Representation Learning for Chinese Biomedical Text Mining

Biomedical text mining is becoming increasingly important as the number of biomedical documents and web data rapidly grows. Recently, word representation models such as BERT has gained popularity among researchers. However, it is difficult to estimate their performance on datasets containing biomedical texts as the word distributions of general and biomedical corpora are quite different. Moreover, the medical domain has long-tail concepts and terminologies that are difficult to be learned via language models. For the Chinese biomedical text, it is more difficult due to its complex structure and the variety of phrase combinations. In this paper, we investigate how the recently introduced pre-trained language model BERT can be adapted for Chinese biomedical corpora and propose a novel conceptualized representation learning approach. We also release a new Chinese Biomedical Language Understanding Evaluation benchmark (\textbf{ChineseBLUE}). We examine the effectiveness of Chinese pre-trained models: BERT, BERT-wwm, RoBERTa, and our approach. Experimental results on the benchmark show that our approach could bring significant gain. We release the pre-trained model on GitHub: https://github.com/alibaba-research/ChineseBLUE.Comment: WSDM2020 Health Da

Expressions of ECE-CYC2 clade genes relating to abortion of both dorsal and ventral stamens in Opithandra (Gesneriaceae)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>ECE-CYC2 clade genes known in patterning floral dorsoventral asymmetry (zygomorphy) in <it>Antirrhinum majus </it>are conserved in the dorsal identity function including arresting the dorsal stamen. However, it remains uncertain whether the same mechanism underlies abortion of the ventral stamens, an important morphological trait related to evolution and diversification of zygomorphy in Lamiales <it>sensu lato</it>, a major clade of predominantly zygomorphically flowered angiosperms. <it>Opithandra </it>(Gesneriaceae) is of particular interests in addressing this question as it is in the base of Lamiales <it>s.l</it>., an early representative of this type zygomorphy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We investigated the expression patterns of four ECE-CYC2 clade genes and two putative target <it>cyclinD3 </it>genes in <it>Opithandra </it>using RNA <it>in situ </it>hybridization and RT-PCR. <it>OpdCYC </it>gene expressions were correlated with abortion of both dorsal and ventral stamens in <it>Opithandra</it>, strengthened by the negatively correlated expression of their putative target <it>OpdcyclinD3 </it>genes. The complement of <it>OpdcyclinD3 </it>to <it>OpdCYC </it>expressions further indicated that <it>OpdCYC </it>expressions were related to the dorsal and ventral stamen abortion through negative effects on <it>OpdcyclinD3 </it>genes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that ECE-CYC2 clade TCP genes are not only functionally conserved in the dorsal stamen repression, but also involved in arresting ventral stamens, a genetic mechanism underlying the establishment of zygomorphy with abortion of both the dorsal and ventral stamens evolved in angiosperms, especially within Lamiales <it>s.l</it>.</p

Dietary plant soot supplementation improves the intestinal health status of farmed American eels (<em>Anguilla rostrata</em>)

The current study evaluated the effect of different dietary plant soot supplementation levels on the intestinal health status of American eels (Anguilla rostrata) cultured in concrete tanks. Nine concrete fish tanks were randomly divided into three groups and fed the diets with plant soot (PS) supplementation levels at 0, 3 g/kg, and 5 g/kg, respectively. After a feeding trial for 60 days, the intestinal tissues were sampled to measure health status parameters. The D-lactate level and DAO activity in the serum of the PS5 group were significantly lower than those of the PS0 group (P <0.05). Compared with the PS0 group, the villi length of the intestine in both PS3 group and PS5 group increased significantly (P<0.05). The muscular thickness of the intestine of the PS5 group was significantly higher than the PS0 group (P<0.05). The microvillus density of the intestine of the American eel was increased obviously in the PS5 group. The intestinal microbiota composition of plant soot groups was beneficially regulated with certain probiotics' higher relative abundances and some pathogenic bacteria' lower relative abundance. In conclusion, dietary 5 g/kg plant soot supplementation could benefit the intestinal health of farmed American eels

Superradiant anomaly magnification in evolution of vector bosonic condensates bounded by a Kerr black hole with near-horizon reflection

Ultralight vector particles can form evolving condensates around a Kerr black hole (BH) due to superradiant instability. We study the effect of near-horizon reflection on the evolution of this system; by matching three pieces of asymptotic expansions of the Proca equation in Kerr metric and considering the leading order in the electric mode, we present explicit analytical expressions for the corrected energy level shifts and the superradiant instability rates. Particularly, in high-spin BH cases, we identify an anomalous situation where the superadiance rate is temporarily increased by the reflection parameter $\mathcal{R}$, which also occurs in the scalar scenario, but is largely magnified in vector condensates due to a faster growth rate in dominant mode; we constructed several featured quantities to illustrate this anomaly, and formalized the magnification with relevant correction factors, which may be of significance in future studies of gravitational waveforms of this monochromatic type. In addition, the duration of superradiance for the whole evolution is prolonged with a delay factor, which is calculated to be $(1+\mathcal{R})/({1-\mathcal{R}})$ approximately