AutoDiff: combining Auto-encoder and Diffusion model for tabular data synthesizing

Diffusion model has become a main paradigm for synthetic data generation in many subfields of modern machine learning, including computer vision, language model, or speech synthesis. In this paper, we leverage the power of diffusion model for generating synthetic tabular data. The heterogeneous features in tabular data have been main obstacles in tabular data synthesis, and we tackle this problem by employing the auto-encoder architecture. When compared with the state-of-the-art tabular synthesizers, the resulting synthetic tables from our model show nice statistical fidelities to the real data, and perform well in downstream tasks for machine learning utilities. We conducted the experiments over $15$ publicly available datasets. Notably, our model adeptly captures the correlations among features, which has been a long-standing challenge in tabular data synthesis. Our code is available at https://github.com/UCLA-Trustworthy-AI-Lab/AutoDiffusion

Internet of vehicles for e-health applications : a potential game for optimal network capacity

Wireless technologies are pervasive to support ubiquitous healthcare applications. However, a critical issue of using wireless communications under a healthcare scenario rests at the electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by RF transmission, and a high level of EMI may lead to a critical malfunction of medical sensors. In view of EMI on medical sensors, we propose a power control algorithm under a noncooperative game theoretic framework to schedule data transmission. Our objective is to ensure that the noncooperative game of power control can achieve a network-level objective - the optimal network capacity, although the wireless users are selfish and only interested in optimizing their own channel capacity. To obtain this objective, we show that our proposed noncooperative game is a potential game and propose the best-response-dynamics algorithm which can ensure that the game strategy of each user is induced to the optimal solution to the problem of network-level optimal capacity. Numerical results illustrate that the proposed algorithm can achieve an enhancement of 8% of network performance than the existing algorithm against the variations of mobile hospital environments. © 2007-2012 IEEE

Nanoparticle shape effects on squeezed MHD flow of water based Cu, Al2O3 and SWCNTs over a porous sensor surface

Impact of nanoparticle shape on the squeezed MHD flow of water based metallic nanoparticles over a porous sensor surface in the presence of heat source has been investigated. In distinctly most paramount studies, three distinctive forms of nanoparticle shapes are employed into account, i.e. sphere ðm ¼ 3:0Þ, cylinder ðm ¼ 6:3698Þ and laminar ðm ¼ 16:1576Þ. The controlling partial differential equations (PDEs) are regenerated into ordinary differential equations (ODEs) by manipulating consistent conformity conversion and it is determined numerically by handling Runge Kutta Fehlberg method with shooting technique. It is noticed that the solid volume fraction and nanoparticle shape have powerful outputs in squeezing flow phenomena, the sphere shape nanoparticle in Cu – water and cylindrical shape in SWCNTs-water in the presence of magnetic field along with thermal radiation energy has better improvement on heat transfer as compared with the other nanoparticle shapes in different flow regimes

Gut microbiota in HIV-pneumonia patients is related to peripheral CD4 counts, lung microbiota, and in vitro macrophage dysfunction.

Pneumonia is common and frequently fatal in HIV-infected patients, due to rampant, systemic inflammation and failure to control microbial infection. While airway microbiota composition is related to local inflammatory response, gut microbiota has been shown to correlate with the degree of peripheral immune activation (IL6 and IP10 expression) in HIV-infected patients. We thus hypothesized that both airway and gut microbiota are perturbed in HIV-infected pneumonia patients, that the gut microbiota is related to peripheral CD4+ cell counts, and that its associated products differentially program immune cell populations necessary for controlling microbial infection in CD4-high and CD4-low patients. To assess these relationships, paired bronchoalveolar lavage and stool microbiota (bacterial and fungal) from a large cohort of Ugandan, HIV-infected patients with pneumonia were examined, and in vitro tests of the effect of gut microbiome products on macrophage effector phenotypes performed. While lower airway microbiota stratified into three compositionally distinct microbiota as previously described, these were not related to peripheral CD4 cell count. In contrast, variation in gut microbiota composition significantly related to CD4 cell count, lung microbiota composition, and patient mortality. Compared with patients with high CD4+ cell counts, those with low counts possessed more compositionally similar airway and gut microbiota, evidence of microbial translocation, and their associated gut microbiome products reduced macrophage activation and IL-10 expression and increased IL-1β expression in vitro. These findings suggest that the gut microbiome is related to CD4 status and plays a key role in modulating macrophage function, critical to microbial control in HIV-infected patients with pneumonia

Linking cognition and frailty in middle and old age: metabolic syndrome matters

Equal contribution Objectives: This study examined whether metabolic syndrome (MetS) would moderate the association of cognition with frailty in middle and old age. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used. Six hundred and ninety participants (age ≥ 50 years) from an on-going national survey were included in the study. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to determine latent variables of executive function (EF), episodic memory (EM), and MetS based on relevant measurements. Frailty was defined using a modified form of Fried's criteria

A panel of tumor markers, calreticulin, annexin A2, and annexin A3 in upper tract urothelial carcinoma identified by proteomic and immunological analysis

BACKGROUND: Upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) is a tumor with sizable metastases and local recurrence. It has a worse prognosis than bladder cancer. This study was designed to investigate the urinary potential tumor markers of UTUC. METHODS: Between January 2008 and January 2009, urine was sampled from 13 patients with UTUC and 20 healthy adults. The current study identified biomarkers for UTUC using non-fixed volume stepwise weak anion exchange chromatography for fractionation of urine protein prior to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. RESULTS: Fifty five differential proteins have been determined by comparing with the 2-DE maps of the urine of UTUC patients and those of healthy people. Western blotting analysis and immunohistochemistry of tumor tissues and normal tissues from patients with UTUC were carried out to further verify five possible UTUC biomarkers, including zinc-alpha-2-glycoprotein, calreticulin, annexin A2, annexin A3 and haptoglobin. The data of western blot and immunohistochemical analysis are consistent with the 2-DE data. Combined the experimental data in the urine and in tumor tissues collected from patients with UTUC, the crucial over-expressed proteins are calreticulin, annexin A2, and annexin A3. CONCLUSIONS: Calreticulin, annexin A2, and annexin A3 are very likely a panel of biomarkers with potential value for UTUC diagnosis

A comparison of the characteristics of volunteers and non-volunteers in Sabah

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Bone metastatic LNCaP-derivative C4-2B prostate cancer cell line mineralizes in vitro

BACKGROUND Prostate cancer frequently metastasizes to bone. However, unlike many other tumors that produce osteolytic lesions, prostate cancer produces osteoblastic lesions through unknown mechanisms. In the current study, we explored the ability and mechanism of an osteotropic prostate cancer cell line (C4-2B) to induce mineralization. METHODS C4-2B cells were grown in promineralization media. Mineral deposition was characterized using von Kossa staining, calcium retention, alizarin red staining, Raman spectroscopy, and electron microscopy. Expression of osteoblast-related proteins was determined by RT-PCR. The nuclear level of the bone-specific transcription factor Cbfa1 was determined using western analysis and the effect of inhibiting Cbfa1 function, using a “decoy” Cbfa1 response element oligo, on mineralization was determined. RESULTS The studies demonstrated that C4-2B cells, but not its nonosteotropic parent cell line LNCaP, has an osteoblastlike phenotype including production of alkaline phosphatase, osteocalcin, osteonectin, bone sialoprotein, osteoprotegerin (OPG), and OPG ligand. Most importantly, the C4-2B cells produced hydroxyapatite mineral in vitro. Furthermore, C4-2B cells expressed high nuclear levels of the bone-specific transcription factor Cbfa1, compared to LNCaP cells, which accounts for their ability to produce bone-specific proteins. Inhibition of Cbfa1, using decoy DNA Cbfa1 response elements, abrogated the ability of C4-2B to produce mineral. Finally, we determined that C4-2B cells express bone morphogenic protein-7, a known inducer of Cbfa1 expression. CONCLUSIONS These data demonstrate a novel mechanism through which prostate cancer cells may directly contribute to the osteoblastic component that characterize their skeletal metastatic lesions. Prostate 47:212–221, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34759/1/1065_ftp.pd

Increased numbers of oligodendrocyte lineage cells in the optic nerves of cerebroside sulfotransferase knockout mice

Sulfatide is a myelin glycolipid that functions in the formation of paranodal axo-glial junctions in vivo and in the regulation of oligodendrocyte differentiation in vitro. Cerebroside sulfotransferase (CST) catalyzes the production of two sulfated glycolipids, sulfatide and proligodendroblast antigen, in oligodendrocyte lineage cells. Recent studies have demonstrated significant increases in oligodendrocytes from the myelination stage through adulthood in brain and spinal cord under CST-deficient conditions. However, whether these result from excess migration or in situ proliferation during development is undetermined. In the present study, CST-deficient optic nerves were used to examine migration and proliferation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) under sulfated glycolipid-deficient conditions. In adults, more NG2-positive OPCs and fully differentiated cells were observed. In developing optic nerves, the number of cells at the leading edge of migration was similar in CST-deficient and wild-type mice. However, BrdU+ proliferating OPCs were more abundant in CST-deficient mice. These results suggest that sulfated glycolipids may be involved in proliferation of OPCs in vivo