A vision-based fully automated approach to robust image cropping detection

The definition of valid and robust methodologies for assessing the authenticity of digital information is nowadays critical to contrast social manipulation through the media. A key research topic in multimedia forensics is the development of methods for detecting tampered content in large image collections without any human intervention. This paper introduces AMARCORD (Automatic Manhattan-scene AsymmetRically CrOpped imageRy Detector), a fully automated detector for exposing evidences of asymmetrical image cropping on Manhattan-World scenes. The proposed solution estimates and exploits the camera principal point, i.e., a physical feature extracted directly from the image content that is quite insensitive to image processing operations, such as compression and resizing, typical of social media platforms. Robust computer vision techniques are employed throughout, so as to cope with large sources of noise in the data and improve detection performance. The method leverages a novel metric based on robust statistics, and is also capable to decide autonomously whether the image at hand is tractable or not. The results of an extensive experimental evaluation covering several cropping scenarios demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our approac

Early use of abiraterone and radium-223 in metastatic prostate cancer

[No abstract available

Early fate of exogenous promoters in E. coli

Gene gain by horizontal gene transfer is a major pathway of genome innovation in bacteria. The current view posits that acquired genes initially need to be silenced and that a bacterial chromatin protein, H-NS, plays a role in this silencing. However, we lack direct observation of the early fate of a horizontally transferred gene to prove this theory. We combine sequencing, flow cytometry and sorting, followed by microscopy to monitor gene expression and its variability after large-scale random insertions of a reporter gene in a population of Escherichia coli bacteria. We find that inserted promoters have a wide range of gene-expression variability related to their location. We find that high-expression clones carry insertions that are not correlated with H-NS binding. Conversely, binding of H-NS correlates with silencing. Finally, while most promoters show a common level of extrinsic noise, some insertions show higher noise levels. Analysis of these high-noise clones supports a scenario of switching due to transcriptional interference from divergent ribosomal promoters. Altogether, our findings point to evolutionary pathways where newly-acquired genes are not necessarily silenced, but may immediately explore a wide range of expression levels to probe the optimal ones

Image counter-forensics based on feature injection

Starting from the concept that many image forensic tools are based on the detection of some features revealing a particular aspect of the history of an image, in this work we model the counter-forensic attack as the injection of a specific fake feature pointing to the same history of an authentic reference image. We propose a general attack strategy that does not rely on a specific detector structure. Given a source image x and a target image y, the adversary processes x in the pixel domain producing an attacked image (x) over tilde, perceptually similar to x, whose feature f((x) over tilde) is as close as possible to f (y) computed on y. Our proposed counter-forensic attack consists in the constrained minimization of the feature distance Phi(z) = vertical bar f (z) f (y) vertical bar through iterative methods based on gradient descent. To solve the intrinsic limit due to the numerical estimation of the gradient on large images, we propose the application of a feature decomposition process, that allows the problem to be reduced into many subproblems on the blocks the image is partitioned into. The proposed strategy has been tested by attacking three different features and its performance has been compared to state-of-the-art counter-forensic methods

Metabolic aspects of cardiovascular diseases: Is FoxO1 a player or a target?

The O subfamily of forkhead (FoxO) 1 is a crucial regulator of cell metabolism in several tissues, including the heart, where it is involved in cardiac regulation of glucose and lipid metabolic pathways, and endothelium, controlling the levels of some relevant biomarkers in atherosclerotic process. Despite the growing understanding of FoxO1 biology, the metabolic consequences of FoxO1 modifications and its implication in CVD, atherosclerosis and T2DM are still not incompletely described. In this review we discuss how FoxO1 affects cardiovascular pathophysiology and which of its effects should be restrained or enhanced to preserve endothelial and heart functions

Zoledronic acid induces a significant decrease of circulating endothelial cells and circulating endothelial precursor cells in the early prostate cancer neoadjuvant setting

Purpose: Published data demonstrated that zoledronic acid (ZOL) exhibits antiangiogenetic effects. A promising tool for monitoring antiangiogenic therapies is the measurement of circulating endothelial cells (CECs) and circulating endothelial precursor cells (CEPs) in the peripheral blood of patients. Our aim was to investigate the effects of ZOL on levels of CECs and CEPs in localized prostate cancer. Methods: Ten consecutive patients with a histologic diagnosis of low-risk prostate adenocarcinoma were enrolled and received an intravenous infusion of ZOL at baseline (T0), 28 days (T28) and 56 days (T56). Blood samples were collected at the following times: T0 (before the first infusion of ZOL), T3 (72 h after the first dose), T28, T56 (both just before the ZOL infusion) and T84 (28 days after the last infusion of ZOL) and CEC/CEP levels were directly quantified by flow cytometry at all these time points. Results: Our analyses highlighted a significant reduction of mean percentage of CECs and CEPs after initiation of ZOL treatment [p = 0.014 (at day 3) and p = 0.012 (at day 84), respectively]. Conclusion: These preliminary results demonstrate that ZOL could exert an antiangiogenic effect in early prostate cancer through CEP and CEC modulation

Dicer and Drosha expression and response to Bevacizumab-based therapy in advanced colorectal cancer patients

PURPOSE: The miRNA-regulating enzymes Dicer and Drosha exhibit aberrant expression in several cancer types. Dicer and Drosha play a crucial role during the angiogenetic process in vitro and, for Dicer, in vivo. We aimed to investigate the potential role of Dicer and Drosha in predicting response to Bevacizumab-based therapy in advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. METHODS: Dicer and Drosha mRNA levels were analysed in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens from patients affected by advanced CRC treated with or without Bevacizumab-containing regimens (n=116 and n=50, respectively) and from patients with diverticulosis as control group (n=20). The experimental data were obtained using qRT-PCR, analysed comparing Dicer and Drosha expression levels in tumour samples versus normal mucosa and then compared to clinical outcome. RESULTS: The tumour samples from Bevacizumab-treated patients showed a significantly higher Drosha expression (P<.001) versus normal mucosa, while Dicer levels did not differ. Intriguingly, we found that low Dicer levels predicted a longer progression-free survival (PFS) (P<.0001) and overall survival (OS) (P=.009). In addition, low Dicer levels were associated with better response to Bevacizumab-based treatments versus high Dicer levels (1.7% complete responses and 53.4% partial responses versus 0% and 32.7%, respectively; P=.0067). Multivariate analysis identified three independent predictors of improved OS: high performance status (PS) (relative risk (RR) 1.45; P=.011), lower organs involvement (RR 0.79; P=.034) and low Dicer expression (RR 0.71; P=.008). Conversely, Drosha levels were not associated with prognosis and outcome associated with treatment. In non-Bevacizumab-treated patients, Dicer and Drosha expression did not correlate with outcome. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that low Dicer mRNA levels seem to be independent predictors of favourable outcome and response in patients affected by advanced CRCs treated with Bevacizumab-based therapy