7,555 research outputs found
Erythropoietin inhibits chemotherapy-induced cell death and promotes a senescence-like state in leukemia cells
There are conflicting reports on the adverse effects of erythropoietin (EPO) for the management of cancer-associated anemia. The recognition that erythropoietin receptors (EPORs) are expressed outside the erythroid lineage and concerns that erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) may cause tumors to grow and increase the risk of venous thromboembolism have resulted in substantially fewer cancer patients receiving ESA therapy to manage myelosuppressive chemotherapy. In this study, we found that EPO suppresses p53-dependent apoptosis induced by genotoxic (daunorubicin, doxorubicin, and γ-radiation) and non-genotoxic (nutlin-3a) agents and induces a senescence-like state in myeloid leukemia cells. EPO interferes with stress-dependent Mdm2 downregulation and leads to the destabilization of p53 protein. EPO selectively modulates the expression of p53 target genes in response to DNA damage preventing the induction of a number of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) previously associated with p53-dependent apoptosis. EPO also enhances the expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21WAF1 and promotes recruitment of p53 to the p21 promoter. In addition, EPO antagonizes Mcl-1 protein degradation in daunorubicin-treated cells. Hence, EPO signaling targets Mcl-1 expression and the p53-Mdm2 network to promote tumor cell survival.York University Librarie
Constrained Output Embeddings for End-to-End Code-Switching Speech Recognition with Only Monolingual Data
The lack of code-switch training data is one of the major concerns in the
development of end-to-end code-switching automatic speech recognition (ASR)
models. In this work, we propose a method to train an improved end-to-end
code-switching ASR using only monolingual data. Our method encourages the
distributions of output token embeddings of monolingual languages to be
similar, and hence, promotes the ASR model to easily code-switch between
languages. Specifically, we propose to use Jensen-Shannon divergence and cosine
distance based constraints. The former will enforce output embeddings of
monolingual languages to possess similar distributions, while the later simply
brings the centroids of two distributions to be close to each other.
Experimental results demonstrate high effectiveness of the proposed method,
yielding up to 4.5% absolute mixed error rate improvement on Mandarin-English
code-switching ASR task.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted to INTERSPEECH 201
Colength, multiplicity, and ideal closure operations
In a formally unmixed Noetherian local ring, if the colength and multiplicity
of an integrally closed ideal agree, then is regular. We deduce this using
the relationship between multiplicity and various ideal closure operations.Comment: 7 pages, final versio
An evaluation of economic viability of small scale slaughterhouses in Vietnam: Implication for pig value chain development
Slaughterhouse plays important role in pig value chain in Vietnam, not only for the
functions it plays and economic added value it generates, but also for product quality relates to
food safety standards that is much affected under slaughtering activity. The study is aimed to
get a better understanding of structure, conduct, performance and economic viability of small
scale slaughter houses in the pig value chain, and draw key implications for pig value chain
development in Vietnam. Nghe An and Hung Yen are selected as study site. Data is collected
from 51 small scale slaughterhouses in 18 communes. Descriptive and comparative statistics
are employed with t-test for mean comparison. Results show that slaughterhouse plays multiple
functions in the pig value chain, generate permanent jobs for at least 2 family labors, and
provides an income of about 18 USD/working day for family labor, contributing about threefourths
of total family income. Slaughtering activity generates an added value of 165 USD/one
ton of live pig, accounting from 24%-44% total value added in the pig value chain. Upstream
and downstream linkages of slaughterhouses in the chain are quite loose with no formal
contract. The majority of small scale slaughterhouses do not meet the standards for pig
slaughterhouse as required by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The setting
up as well as slaughtering practices are perceived to contribute to exposure of meat to
contamination that could lead to higher incidence of salmonella in pork, a common cause of
foodborne illness for consumers. Rising concerns of consumers about food safety as well as
increasing level of economic integration of Vietnam are factors potentially having great
impacts on economic viability of small scale slaughterhouse in Vietnam. Several
recommendations for upgrading slaughterhouse are proposed accordingly
Improving the livelihood of small farmers in the pig value chain: Experiences in the north of Vietnam
Livestock sector in general and pig production in particular are important in Vietnam not only
for supplying food for its growing population but also for their significant contributions to the
country’s economy. Smallholder pig producers which are common, are estimated to supply at
least 80% of pork in total pork production in the country. The paper airms to draw a picture of
pig production performance of small farmers based on the survey data of ILRI-VNUA and value
chain approach. It is believed that pig smallholders in Vietnam perform a weak market
orientation, and they do not have full information about market. Therefore, some implications
should be as small pig farmers need facilitation from the government and training & improving
veterinary network are needed; Government management on input and output markets should be
strengthened effectively; The private sector should participate actively in the chains; and
Awareness of food safety of people should be improved
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