Leveraging Pretrained Representations with Task-related Keywords for Alzheimer's Disease Detection

With the global population aging rapidly, Alzheimer's disease (AD) is particularly prominent in older adults, which has an insidious onset and leads to a gradual, irreversible deterioration in cognitive domains (memory, communication, etc.). Speech-based AD detection opens up the possibility of widespread screening and timely disease intervention. Recent advances in pre-trained models motivate AD detection modeling to shift from low-level features to high-level representations. This paper presents several efficient methods to extract better AD-related cues from high-level acoustic and linguistic features. Based on these features, the paper also proposes a novel task-oriented approach by modeling the relationship between the participants' description and the cognitive task. Experiments are carried out on the ADReSS dataset in a binary classification setup, and models are evaluated on the unseen test set. Results and comparison with recent literature demonstrate the efficiency and superior performance of proposed acoustic, linguistic and task-oriented methods. The findings also show the importance of semantic and syntactic information, and feasibility of automation and generalization with the promising audio-only and task-oriented methods for the AD detection task.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 3 table

Relationship between Life’s Essential 8 and metabolic syndrome among older Americans (NHANES, 2007–2010): navigating biological aging and inflammation

BackgroundMetabolic syndrome (MetS) is a global health concern, and it is particularly harmful to middle-aged and elderly individuals. Life Element Eight (LE8), a measure to improve cardiovascular health, may offer benefits for MetS. Herein, we examined the relationship between LE8 and MetS among middle-aged and elderly individuals, and elucidated the role of biological aging and inflammation in this process.MethodsWe obtained the LE8 scores of 2,901 Americans, along with their biological aging indicators (Biological age, Phenotypic age, Serum Klotho), and computed their inflammatory indicators SII, DII. Using logistic regression model, we assessed the association among inflammatory markers, Biological aging, LE8 and MetS. Additionally, we generated restricted cubic spline (RCS) plots to display trends in significant variables in logistic regression. Using parallel mediation analysis, we evaluated the possible mediating role of various factors in the risk relationship between LE8 and MetS.ResultsOur examination revealed that higher LE8 scores were associated with a lower incidence of MetS in a fully adjusted model. The high LE8 subgroup had a 79.73% reduction in the risk of MetS compared to the low subgroup with an OR = 0.2027 (95% Cl 0.0871, 0.4714), with similar correlations between health factor scores and MetS risk. Biological aging mediated the associations between LE8, health behaviors and health factor scores and MetS risk.ConclusionA rise in the LE8 score among middle-aged and elderly individuals is a protective factor for MetS, and this association may be partially mediated by biological aging, suggesting that LE8 may reduce the risk of MetS by ameliorating aging

Social Determinants of Community Health Services Utilization among the Users in China: A 4-Year Cross-Sectional Study

Background To identify social factors determining the frequency of community health service (CHS) utilization among CHS users in China. Methods Nationwide cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. A total of 86,116 CHS visitors selected from 35 cities were interviewed. Descriptive analysis and multinomial logistic regression analysis were employed to analyze characteristics of CHS users, frequency of CHS utilization, and the socio-demographic and socio-economic factors influencing frequency of CHS utilization. Results Female and senior CHS clients were more likely to make 3–5 and ≥6 CHS visits (as opposed to 1–2 visits) than male and young clients, respectively. CHS clients with higher education were less frequent users than individuals with primary education or less in 2008 and 2009; in later surveys, CHS clients with higher education were the more frequent users. The association between frequent CHS visits and family income has changed significantly between 2008 and 2011. In 2011, income status did not have a discernible effect on the likelihood of making ≥6 CHS visits, and it only had a slight effect on making 3–5 CHS visits. Conclusion CHS may play an important role in providing primary health care to meet the demands of vulnerable populations in China. Over time, individuals with higher education are increasingly likely to make frequent CHS visits than individuals with primary school education or below. The gap in frequency of CHS utilization among different economic income groups decreased from 2008 to 2011

The rates and the determinants of hypertension according to the 2017 definition of hypertension by ACC/AHA and 2014 evidence-based guidelines among population aged ≥40 years old

Background : In November 2017, the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) updated their definition of hypertension from 140/90 mm Hg to 130/80 mm Hg. Objectives : We sought to assess the situation of hypertension and the impact of applying the new threshold to a geographically and ethnically diverse population. Methods : We analyzed selected data on 237,142 participants aged ≥40 who had blood pressure taken for the 2014 China National Stroke Screening and Prevention Project. Choropleth maps and logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the prevalence, geographical distribution and risk factors of hypertension using both 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines and 2014 evidence-based guidelines. Results : The present cross-sectional study showed the age- and sex-standardized prevalence of hypertension was 37.08% and 58.52%, respectively, according to 2014 evidence-based guidelines and 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines. The distribution of hypertension and risk factors changed little between guidelines, with data showing a high prevalence of hypertension around Bohai Gulf and in south central coastal areas using either definition. The age- and sex-standardized prevalence of newly labeled as hypertensive was 21.44%. Interestingly, the high prevalence region of newly labeled as hypertensive was found in the north China. Conclusion : The prevalence of hypertension increased significantly on 2017 ACC/AHA guidelines compared to the prevalence when using 2014 evidence-based guidelines, with high prevalence areas of newly labeled as hypertensive now seen mainly in north China. There need to be correspondingly robust efforts to improve health education, health management, and behavioral and lifestyle interventions in the north

Dissection of CDK4-binding and Transactivation Activities of p34SEI-1 and Comparison between Functions of p34SEI-1 and p16INK4

[[sponsorship]]生物化學研究所,基因體研究中心[[note]]已出版;[SCI];有審查制度;不具代表性[[note]]http://gateway.isiknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=Drexel&SrcApp=hagerty_opac&KeyRecord=0006-2960&DestApp=JCR&RQ=IF_CAT_BOXPLOT[[note]]http://gateway.isiknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=RID&SrcApp=RID&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&KeyUT=00023246310000

Regulatory mechanisms of tumor suppressor P16(INK4A) and their relevance to cancer

[[sponsorship]]生物化學研究所,基因體研究中心[[note]]已出版;[SCI];有審查制度;不具代表性[[note]]http://gateway.isiknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=Drexel&SrcApp=hagerty_opac&KeyRecord=0006-2960&DestApp=JCR&RQ=IF_CAT_BOXPLOT[[note]]http://gateway.isiknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=RID&SrcApp=RID&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&KeyUT=00029189700000

Automated identification and segmentation of urine spots based on deep-learning

Micturition serves an essential physiological function that allows the body to eliminate metabolic wastes and maintain water-electrolyte balance. The urine spot assay (VSA), as a simple and economical assay, has been widely used in the study of micturition behavior in rodents. However, the traditional VSA method relies on manual judgment, introduces subjective errors, faces difficulty in obtaining appearance time of each urine spot, and struggles with quantitative analysis of overlapping spots. To address these challenges, we developed a deep learning-based approach for the automatic identification and segmentation of urine spots. Our system employs a target detection network to efficiently detect each urine spot and utilizes an instance segmentation network to achieve precise segmentation of overlapping urine spots. Compared with the traditional VSA method, our system achieves automated detection of urine spot area of micturition in rodents, greatly reducing subjective errors. It accurately determines the urination time of each spot and effectively quantifies the overlapping spots. This study enables high-throughput and precise urine spot detection, providing important technical support for the analysis of urination behavior and the study of the neural mechanism underlying urination