Historical and future trends in emergency pituitary referrals: a machine learning analysis

Purpose: Acute pituitary referrals to neurosurgical services frequently necessitate emergency care. Yet, a detailed characterisation of pituitary emergency referral patterns, including how they may change prospectively is lacking. This study aims to evaluate historical and current pituitary referral patterns and utilise state-of-the-art machine learning tools to predict future service use. Methods: A data-driven analysis was performed using all available electronic neurosurgical referrals (2014–2021) to the busiest U.K. pituitary centre. Pituitary referrals were characterised and volumes were predicted using an auto-regressive moving average model with a preceding seasonal and trend decomposition using Loess step (STL-ARIMA), compared against a Convolutional Neural Network-Long Short-Term Memory (CNN-LSTM) algorithm, Prophet and two standard baseline forecasting models. Median absolute, and median percentage error scoring metrics with cross-validation were employed to evaluate algorithm performance. Results: 462 of 36,224 emergency referrals were included (referring centres = 48; mean patient age = 56.7 years, female:male = 0.49:0.51). Emergency medicine and endocrinology accounted for the majority of referrals (67%). The most common presentations were headache (47%) and visual field deficits (32%). Lesions mainly comprised tumours or haemorrhage (85%) and involved the pituitary gland or fossa (70%). The STL-ARIMA pipeline outperformed CNN-LSTM, Prophet and baseline algorithms across scoring metrics, with standard accuracy being achieved for yearly predictions. Referral volumes significantly increased from the start of data collection with future projected increases (p < 0.001) and did not significantly reduce during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: This work is the first to employ large-scale data and machine learning to describe and predict acute pituitary referral volumes, estimate future service demands, explore the impact of system stressors (e.g. COVID pandemic), and highlight areas for service improvement

EcoDaLo : federating advertisement targeting with linked data

A key source of revenue for the media and entertainmentdomain isad targeting: serving advertisements to a select set of visitorsbased on various captured visitor traits. Compared to global media com-panies such as Google and Facebook that aggregate data from varioussources (and the privacy concerns these aggregations bring), local compa-nies only capture a small number of (high-quality) traits and retrieve anunbalanced small amount of revenue. To increase these local publishers’competitive advantage, they need to join forces, whilst taking the visi-tors’ privacy concerns into account. The EcoDaLo consortium, located in Belgium and consisting of Adlogix, Pebble Media, and Roularta MediaGroup as founding partners, aims to combine local publishers’ data without requiring these partners to share this data across the consortium.Usage of Semantic Web technologies enables a decentralized approachwhere federated querying allows local companies to combine their captured visitor traits, and better target visitors, without aggregating alldata. To increase potential uptake, technical complexity to join this consortium is kept minimal, and established technology is used where possible. This solution was showcased in Belgium which provided the participating partners valuable insights and suggests future research challenges. Perspectives are to enlarge the consortium and provide measurable impact in ad targeting to local publishers

Hybrid Refining Approach of PrOnto Ontology

This paper presents a refinement of PrOnto ontology using a validation test based on legal experts’ annotation of privacy policies combined with an Open Knowledge Extraction (OKE) algorithm. To ensure robustness of the results while preserving an interdisciplinary approach, the integration of legal and technical knowledge has been carried out as follows. The set of privacy policies was first analysed by the legal experts to discover legal concepts and map the text into PrOnto. The mapping was then provided to computer scientists to perform the OKE analysis. Results were validated by the legal experts, who provided feedbacks and refinements (i.e. new classes and modules) of the ontology according to MeLOn methodology. Three iterations were performed on a set of (development) policies, and a final test using a new set of privacy policies. The results are 75,43% of detection of concepts in the policy texts and an increase of roughly 33% in the accuracy gain on the test set, using the new refined version of PrOnto enriched with SKOS-XL lexicon terms and definitions

Solid-state NMR applied to photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes

This short review describes how solid-state NMR has provided a mechanistic and electronic picture of pigment–protein and pigment–pigment interactions in photosynthetic antenna complexes. NMR results on purple bacterial antenna complexes show how the packing of the protein and the pigments inside the light-harvesting oligomers induces mutual conformational stress. The protein scaffold produces deformation and electrostatic polarization of the BChl macrocycles and leads to a partial electronic charge transfer between the BChls and their coordinating histidines, which can tune the light-harvesting function. In chlorosome antennae assemblies, the NMR template structure reveals how the chromophores can direct their self-assembly into higher macrostructures which, in turn, tune the light-harvesting properties of the individual molecules by controlling their disorder, structural deformation, and electronic polarization without the need for a protein scaffold. These results pave the way for addressing the next challenge, which is to resolve the functional conformational dynamics of the lhc antennae of oxygenic species that allows them to switch between light-emitting and light-energy dissipating states

Adverse reactions to metal debris occur with all types of hip replacement not just metal-on-metal hips: a retrospective observational study of 3340 revisions for adverse reactions to metal debris from the National Joint Registry for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man.

BACKGROUND: Adverse reactions to metal debris (ARMD) have resulted in the high short-term failure rates observed with metal-on-metal hip replacements. ARMD has recently been reported in non-metal-on-metal total hip replacements (non-MoM THRs) in a number of small cohort studies. However the true magnitude of this complication in non-MoM THRs remains unknown. We used a nationwide database to determine the risk of ARMD revision in all non-MoM THRs, and compared patient and surgical factors associated with ARMD revision between non-MoM and MoM hips. METHODS: We performed a retrospective observational study using data from the National Joint Registry for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. All primary hip replacements undergoing revision surgery for ARMD were included (n = 3,340). ARMD revision risk in non-MoM THRs was compared between different commonly implanted bearing surfaces and femoral head sizes (Chi-squared test). Differences in patient and surgical factors between non-MoM hips and MoM hips revised for ARMD were also analysed (Chi-squared test and unpaired t-test). RESULTS: Of all ARMD revisions, 7.5% (n = 249) had non-MoM bearing surfaces. The relative risk of ARMD revision was 2.35 times (95% CI 1.76-3.11) higher in ceramic-on-ceramic bearings compared with hard-on-soft bearings (0.055 vs. 0.024%; p < 0.001), and 2.80 times (95% CI 1.74-4.36) higher in 36 mm metal-on-polyethylene bearings compared to 28 mm and 32 mm metal-on-polyethylene bearings (0.058 vs. 0.021%; p < 0.001). ARMD revisions were performed earlier in non-MoM hips compared to MoM hips (mean 3.6-years vs. 5.6-years; p < 0.0001). Non-MoM hips had more abnormal findings at revision (63.1 vs. 35.7%; p < 0.001), and more intra-operative adverse events (6.4 vs. 1.6%; p < 0.001) compared to MoM hips. CONCLUSIONS: Although the overall risk of ARMD revision surgery in non-MoM THRs appears low, this risk is increasing, and is significantly higher in ceramic-on-ceramic THRs and 36 mm metal-on-polyethylene THRs. ARMD may therefore represent a significant clinical problem in non-MoM THRs

ODRL Policy Modelling and Compliance Checking

This paper addresses the problem of constructing a policy pipeline that enables compliance checking of business processes against regulatory obligations. Towards this end, we propose an Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) profile that can be used to capture the semantics of both business policies in the form of sets of required permissions and regulatory requirements in the form of deontic concepts, and present their translation into Answer Set Programming (via the Institutional Action Language (InstAL)) for compliance checking purposes. The result of the compliance checking is either a positive compliance result or an explanation pertaining to the aspects of the policy that are causing the noncompliance. The pipeline is illustrated using two (key) fragments of the General Data Protect Regulation, namely Articles 6 (Lawfulness of processing) and Articles 46 (Transfers subject to appropriate safeguards) and industrially-relevant use cases that involve the specification of sets of permissions that are needed to execute business processes. The core contributions of this paper are the ODRL profile, which is capable of modelling regulatory obligations and business policies, the exercise of modelling elements of GDPR in this semantic formalism, and the operationalisation of the model to demonstrate its capability to support personal data processing compliance checking, and a basis for explaining why the request is deemed compliant or not

Features of mammalian microRNA promoters emerge from polymerase II chromatin immunoprecipitation data

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, non-coding RNA regulators of protein coding genes. miRNAs play a very important role in diverse biological processes and various diseases. Many algorithms are able to predict miRNA genes and their targets, but their transcription regulation is still under investigation. It is generally believed that intragenic miRNAs (located in introns or exons of protein coding genes) are co-transcribed with their host genes and most intergenic miRNAs transcribed from their own RNA polymerase II (Pol II) promoter. However, the length of the primary transcripts and promoter organization is currently unknown. Methodology: We performed Pol II chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-chip using a custom array surrounding regions of known miRNA genes. To identify the true core transcription start sites of the miRNA genes we developed a new tool (CPPP). We showed that miRNA genes can be transcribed from promoters located several kilobases away and that their promoters share the same general features as those of protein coding genes. Finally, we found evidence that as many as 26% of the intragenic miRNAs may be transcribed from their own unique promoters. Conclusion: miRNA promoters have similar features to those of protein coding genes, but miRNA transcript organization is more complex. © 2009 Corcoran et al

Peroxiredoxin 3 Is a Redox-Dependent Target of Thiostrepton in Malignant Mesothelioma Cells

Thiostrepton (TS) is a thiazole antibiotic that inhibits expression of FOXM1, an oncogenic transcription factor required for cell cycle progression and resistance to oncogene-induced oxidative stress. The mechanism of action of TS is unclear and strategies that enhance TS activity will improve its therapeutic potential. Analysis of human tumor specimens showed FOXM1 is broadly expressed in malignant mesothelioma (MM), an intractable tumor associated with asbestos exposure. The mechanism of action of TS was investigated in a cell culture model of human MM. As for other tumor cell types, TS inhibited expression of FOXM1 in MM cells in a dose-dependent manner. Suppression of FOXM1 expression and coincidental activation of ERK1/2 by TS were abrogated by pre-incubation of cells with the antioxidant N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), indicating its mechanism of action in MM cells is redox-dependent. Examination of the mitochondrial thioredoxin reductase 2 (TR2)-thioredoxin 2 (TRX2)-peroxiredoxin 3 (PRX3) antioxidant network revealed that TS modifies the electrophoretic mobility of PRX3. Incubation of recombinant human PRX3 with TS in vitro also resulted in PRX3 with altered electrophoretic mobility. The cellular and recombinant species of modified PRX3 were resistant to dithiothreitol and SDS and suppressed by NAC, indicating that TS covalently adducts cysteine residues in PRX3. Reduction of endogenous mitochondrial TRX2 levels by the cationic triphenylmethane gentian violet (GV) promoted modification of PRX3 by TS and significantly enhanced its cytotoxic activity. Our results indicate TS covalently adducts PRX3, thereby disabling a major mitochondrial antioxidant network that counters chronic mitochondrial oxidative stress. Redox-active compounds like GV that modify the TR2/TRX2 network may significantly enhance the efficacy of TS, thereby providing a combinatorial approach for exploiting redox-dependent perturbations in mitochondrial function as a therapeutic approach in mesothelioma

Suppression of FOXM1 Sensitizes Human Cancer Cells to Cell Death Induced by DNA-Damage

Irradiation and DNA-damaging chemotherapeutic agents are commonly used in anticancer treatments. Following DNA damage FOXM1 protein levels are often elevated. In this study, we sought to investigate the potential role of FOXM1 in programmed cell death induced by DNA-damage. Human cancer cells after FOXM1 suppression were subjected to doxorubicin or γ-irradiation treatment. Our findings indicate that FOXM1 downregulation by stable or transient knockdown using RNAi or by treatment with proteasome inhibitors that target FOXM1 strongly sensitized human cancer cells of different origin to DNA-damage-induced apoptosis. We showed that FOXM1 suppresses the activation of pro-apoptotic JNK and positively regulates anti-apoptotic Bcl-2, suggesting that JNK activation and Bcl-2 down-regulation could mediate sensitivity to DNA-damaging agent-induced apoptosis after targeting FOXM1. Since FOXM1 is widely expressed in human cancers, our data further support the fact that it is a valid target for combinatorial anticancer therapy

Cholesterol Induces Specific Spatial and Orientational Order in Cholesterol/Phospholipid Membranes

In lipid bilayers, cholesterol facilitates the formation of the liquid-ordered phase and enables the formation of laterally ordered structures such as lipid rafts. While these domains have an important role in a variety of cellular processes, the precise atomic-level mechanisms responsible for cholesterol's specific ordering and packing capability have remained unresolved