InstructHumans: Editing Animated 3D Human Textures with Instructions

We present InstructHumans, a novel framework for instruction-driven 3D human texture editing. Existing text-based editing methods use Score Distillation Sampling (SDS) to distill guidance from generative models. This work shows that naively using such scores is harmful to editing as they destroy consistency with the source avatar. Instead, we propose an alternate SDS for Editing (SDS-E) that selectively incorporates subterms of SDS across diffusion timesteps. We further enhance SDS-E with spatial smoothness regularization and gradient-based viewpoint sampling to achieve high-quality edits with sharp and high-fidelity detailing. InstructHumans significantly outperforms existing 3D editing methods, consistent with the initial avatar while faithful to the textual instructions. Project page: https://jyzhu.top/instruct-humans .Comment: Project Page: https://jyzhu.top/instruct-human

Gentiopicroside Ameliorates Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy by Modulating PPAR- Γ/AMPK/ACC Signaling Pathway

Background/Aims: Gentiopicroside is promising as an important secoiridoid compound against pain. The present study aimed to investigate the analgesic effect and the probable mechanism of Gentiopicroside on Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy (DPN), and to figure out the association among Gentiopicroside, dyslipidemia and PPAR- γ/AMPK/ACC signaling pathway. Methods: DPN rat models were established by streptozotocin and RSC96 cells were cultured. Hot, cold and mechanical tactile allodynia were conducted. Blood lipids, nerve blood flow, Motor Nerve Conduction Velocity (MNCV) and Sensory Nerve Conduction Velocity (SNCV) were detected. Gene and protein expression of PPAR- γ/AMPK/ACC pathway was analyzed by reverse transcription-quan titative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and Westernblot. Besides, PPAR-γ antagonist GW9662 and agonist rosiglitazone, AMPK antagonist compound C and activator AICAR as well as ACC inhibitor TOFA were used to further confirm the relationship between PPAR-γ and AMPK. Results: The results demonstrated that Gentiopicroside markedly ameliorated hyperalgesia with prolonged paw withdrawal latency to heat and cold stimuli and fewer responses to mechanical allodynia compared with DPN model group. Gentiopicroside regulated dyslipidemia, enhanced nerve blood flow and improved MNCV as well as SNCV. Gentiopicroside suppressed ACC expression through the activation of AMPK and PPAR-γ mediated the activation of AMPK and subsequent inhibition of ACC expression. Conclusion: In conclusion, the present study demon strated that Gentiopicroside exerted nerve-protective effect and attenuated experimental DPN by restoring dyslipidmia and improved nerve blood flow through regulating PPAR-γ/AMPK/ACC signal pathway. These results provided a promising potential treatment of DPN

Associations of genetically predicted iron status with 24 gastrointestinal diseases and gut microbiota: a Mendelian randomization study

BackgroundIron status has been implicated in gastrointestinal diseases and gut microbiota, however, confounding factors may influence these associations.ObjectiveWe performed Mendelian randomization (MR) to investigate the associations of iron status, including blood iron content, visceral iron content, and iron deficiency anemia with the incidence of 24 gastrointestinal diseases and alterations in gut microbiota.MethodsIndependent genetic instruments linked with iron status were selected using a genome-wide threshold of p = 5 × 10−6 from corresponding genome-wide association studies. Genetic associations related to gastrointestinal diseases and gut microbiota were derived from the UK Biobank, the FinnGen study, and other consortia.ResultsGenetically predicted higher levels of iron and ferritin were associated with a higher risk of liver cancer. Higher levels of transferrin saturation were linked to a decreased risk of celiac disease, but a higher risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and liver cancer. Higher spleen iron content was linked to a lower risk of pancreatic cancer. Additionally, higher levels of liver iron content were linked to a higher risk of NAFLD and liver cancer. However, certain associations lost their statistical significance upon accounting for the genetically predicted usage of cigarettes and alcohol. Then, higher levels of iron and ferritin were associated with 11 gut microbiota abundance, respectively. In a secondary analysis, higher iron levels were associated with lower diverticular disease risk and higher ferritin levels with increased liver cancer risk. Higher levels of transferrin saturation were proven to increase the risk of NAFLD, alcoholic liver disease, and liver cancer, but decrease the risk of esophageal cancer. MR analysis showed no mediating relationship among iron status, gut microbiota, and gastrointestinal diseases.ConclusionThis study provides evidence suggesting potential causal associations of iron status with gastrointestinal diseases and gut microbiota, especially liver disease

Human amnion-derived mesenchymal stem cells attenuate acute lung injury in two different acute lung injury mice models

Acute lung injury (ALI) is one of the most common clinical emergencies with limited effective pharmaceutical treatment in the clinic, especially when it progresses to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Currently, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) exhibit specific superiority for ALI/ARDS treatment. However, stem cells from different sources may result in controversial effects on similar disease conditions. This study aimed to determine the effects of human amnion-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hAMSCs) on two different ALI mice model. The administered hAMSCs effectively accumulated in the lung tissues in all hAMSC-treated groups. Compared with the model and 1% human serum albumin (HSA) groups, high-dose hAMSCs (1.0 × 106 cells) group significantly alleviated alveolar-capillary permeability, oxidative stress, inflammatory factors level and histopathological damage. In addition, the NF-κB signaling pathway is one of the key pathways activated during lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or paraquat (PQ)-induced lung injury. Our results indicated that hAMSCs (1.0 × 106 cells) obviously inhibited the expression of p-IKKα/β, p-IκBα, and p-p65 in the lung tissue (p < 0.05). The high-dose (HD) hAMSC treatment exerted beneficial therapeutic effects on ALI mice models without detectable adverse reactions. The therapeutic effect of hAMSCs might involve NF-κB signaling pathway inhibition. hAMSC treatment is a potential candidate therapy for ALI

Excess Deaths of Gastrointestinal, Liver, and Pancreatic Diseases During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

Objectives: To evaluate excess deaths of gastrointestinal, liver, and pancreatic diseases in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: We retrieved weekly death counts from National Vital Statistics System and fitted them with a quasi-Poisson regression model. Cause-specific excess deaths were calculated by the difference between observed and expected deaths with adjustment for temporal trend and seasonality. Demographic disparities and temporal-spatial patterns were evaluated for different diseases.Results: From March 2020 to September 2022, the increased mortality (measured by excess risks) for Clostridium difficile colitis, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and acute pancreatitis were 35.9%; 24.8%; and 20.6% higher than the expected. For alcoholic liver disease, fibrosis/cirrhosis, and hepatic failure, the excess risks were 1.4–2.8 times higher among younger inhabitants than older inhabitants. The excess deaths of selected diseases were persistently observed across multiple epidemic waves with fluctuating trends for gastrointestinal hemorrhage and fibrosis/cirrhosis and an increasing trend for C. difficile colitis.Conclusion: The persistently observed excess deaths of digestive diseases highlights the importance for healthcare authorities to develop sustainable strategies in response to the long-term circulating of SARS-CoV-2 in the community

Physics case for an LHCb Upgrade II - Opportunities in flavour physics, and beyond, in the HL-LHC era

The LHCb Upgrade II will fully exploit the flavour-physics opportunities of the HL-LHC, and study additional physics topics that take advantage of the forward acceptance of the LHCb spectrometer. The LHCb Upgrade I will begin operation in 2020. Consolidation will occur, and modest enhancements of the Upgrade I detector will be installed, in Long Shutdown 3 of the LHC (2025) and these are discussed here. The main Upgrade II detector will be installed in long shutdown 4 of the LHC (2030) and will build on the strengths of the current LHCb experiment and the Upgrade I. It will operate at a luminosity up to 2×1034 cm−2s−1, ten times that of the Upgrade I detector. New detector components will improve the intrinsic performance of the experiment in certain key areas. An Expression Of Interest proposing Upgrade II was submitted in February 2017. The physics case for the Upgrade II is presented here in more depth. CP-violating phases will be measured with precisions unattainable at any other envisaged facility. The experiment will probe b → sl+l−and b → dl+l− transitions in both muon and electron decays in modes not accessible at Upgrade I. Minimal flavour violation will be tested with a precision measurement of the ratio of B(B0 → μ+μ−)/B(Bs → μ+μ−). Probing charm CP violation at the 10−5 level may result in its long sought discovery. Major advances in hadron spectroscopy will be possible, which will be powerful probes of low energy QCD. Upgrade II potentially will have the highest sensitivity of all the LHC experiments on the Higgs to charm-quark couplings. Generically, the new physics mass scale probed, for fixed couplings, will almost double compared with the pre-HL-LHC era; this extended reach for flavour physics is similar to that which would be achieved by the HE-LHC proposal for the energy frontier

LHCb upgrade software and computing : technical design report

This document reports the Research and Development activities that are carried out in the software and computing domains in view of the upgrade of the LHCb experiment. The implementation of a full software trigger implies major changes in the core software framework, in the event data model, and in the reconstruction algorithms. The increase of the data volumes for both real and simulated datasets requires a corresponding scaling of the distributed computing infrastructure. An implementation plan in both domains is presented, together with a risk assessment analysis

Precision Higgs physics at the CEPC

The discovery of the Higgs boson with its mass around 125 GeV by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations marked the beginning of a new era in high energy physics. The Higgs boson will be the subject of extensive studies of the ongoing LHC program. At the same time, lepton collider based Higgs factories have been proposed as a possible next step beyond the LHC, with its main goal to precisely measure the properties of the Higgs boson and probe potential new physics associated with the Higgs boson. The Circular Electron Positron Collider~(CEPC) is one of such proposed Higgs factories. The CEPC is an $e^+e^-$ circular collider proposed by and to be hosted in China. Located in a tunnel of approximately 100~km in circumference, it will operate at a center-of-mass energy of 240~GeV as the Higgs factory. In this paper, we present the first estimates on the precision of the Higgs boson property measurements achievable at the CEPC and discuss implications of these measurements.Comment: 46 pages, 37 figure