628 research outputs found
Unraveling the microbial puzzle: exploring the intricate role of gut microbiota in endometriosis pathogenesis
Endometriosis (EMs) is a prevalent gynecological disorder characterized by the growth of uterine tissue outside the uterine cavity, causing debilitating symptoms and infertility. Despite its prevalence, the exact mechanisms behind EMs development remain incompletely understood. This article presents a comprehensive overview of the relationship between gut microbiota imbalance and EMs pathogenesis. Recent research indicates that gut microbiota plays a pivotal role in various aspects of EMs, including immune regulation, generation of inflammatory factors, angiopoietin release, hormonal regulation, and endotoxin production. Dysbiosis of gut microbiota can disrupt immune responses, leading to inflammation and impaired immune clearance of endometrial fragments, resulting in the development of endometriotic lesions. The dysregulated microbiota can contribute to the release of lipopolysaccharide (LPS), triggering chronic inflammation and promoting ectopic endometrial adhesion, invasion, and angiogenesis. Furthermore, gut microbiota involvement in estrogen metabolism affects estrogen levels, which are directly related to EMs development. The review also highlights the potential of gut microbiota as a diagnostic tool and therapeutic target for EMs. Interventions such as fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and the use of gut microbiota preparations have demonstrated promising effects in reducing EMs symptoms. Despite the progress made, further research is needed to unravel the intricate interactions between gut microbiota and EMs, paving the way for more effective prevention and treatment strategies for this challenging condition
VideoGLUE: Video General Understanding Evaluation of Foundation Models
We evaluate existing foundation models video understanding capabilities using
a carefully designed experiment protocol consisting of three hallmark tasks
(action recognition, temporal localization, and spatiotemporal localization),
eight datasets well received by the community, and four adaptation methods
tailoring a foundation model (FM) for a downstream task. Moreover, we propose a
scalar VideoGLUE score (VGS) to measure an FMs efficacy and efficiency when
adapting to general video understanding tasks. Our main findings are as
follows. First, task-specialized models significantly outperform the six FMs
studied in this work, in sharp contrast to what FMs have achieved in natural
language and image understanding. Second,video-native FMs, whose pretraining
data contains the video modality, are generally better than image-native FMs in
classifying motion-rich videos, localizing actions in time, and understanding a
video of more than one action. Third, the video-native FMs can perform well on
video tasks under light adaptations to downstream tasks(e.g., freezing the FM
backbones), while image-native FMs win in full end-to-end finetuning. The first
two observations reveal the need and tremendous opportunities to conduct
research on video-focused FMs, and the last confirms that both tasks and
adaptation methods matter when it comes to the evaluation of FMs
Neural oscillations during acupuncture imagery partially parallel that of real needling
IntroductionTasks involving mental practice, relying on the cognitive rehearsal of physical motors or other activities, have been reported to have similar patterns of brain activity to overt execution. In this study, we introduced a novel imagination task called, acupuncture imagery and aimed to investigate the neural oscillations during acupuncture imagery.MethodsHealthy volunteers were guided to watch a video of real needling in the left and right KI3 (Taixi point). The subjects were then asked to perform tasks to keep their thoughts in three 1-min states alternately: resting state, needling imagery left KI3, and needling imagery right KI3. Another group experienced real needling in the right KI3. A 31-channel-electroencephalography was synchronously recorded for each subject. Microstate analyses were performed to depict the brain dynamics during these tasks.ResultsCompared to the resting state, both acupuncture needling imagination and real needling in KI3 could introduce significant changes in neural dynamic oscillations. Moreover, the parameters involving microstate A of needling imagery in the right KI3 showed similar changes as real needling in the right KI3.DiscussionThese results confirm that needling imagination and real needling have similar brain activation patterns. Needling imagery may change brain network activity and play a role in neural regulation. Further studies are needed to explore the effects of acupuncture imagery and the potential application of acupuncture imagery in disease recovery
Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with high
rotational stability enables the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs).
The GW signals can be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the
times-of-arrival of widely spaced pulsar-pairs. The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array
(CPTA) is a collaboration aiming at the direct GW detection with observations
carried out using Chinese radio telescopes. This short article serves as a
`table of contents' for a forthcoming series of papers related to the CPTA Data
Release 1 (CPTA DR1) which uses observations from the Five-hundred-meter
Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Here, after summarizing the time
span and accuracy of CPTA DR1, we report the key results of our statistical
inference finding a correlated signal with amplitude \log A_{\rm c}= -14.4
\,^{+1.0}_{-2.8} for spectral index in the range of
assuming a GW background (GWB) induced quadrupolar correlation. The search for
the Hellings-Downs (HD) correlation curve is also presented, where some
evidence for the HD correlation has been found that a 4.6- statistical
significance is achieved using the discrete frequency method around the
frequency of 14 nHz. We expect that the future International Pulsar Timing
Array data analysis and the next CPTA data release will be more sensitive to
the nHz GWB, which could verify the current results.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, submitted to "Research in astronomy and
astrophysics" 22nd March 202
Multidifferential study of identified charged hadron distributions in -tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV
Jet fragmentation functions are measured for the first time in proton-proton
collisions for charged pions, kaons, and protons within jets recoiling against
a boson. The charged-hadron distributions are studied longitudinally and
transversely to the jet direction for jets with transverse momentum 20 GeV and in the pseudorapidity range . The
data sample was collected with the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy
of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.64 fb. Triple
differential distributions as a function of the hadron longitudinal momentum
fraction, hadron transverse momentum, and jet transverse momentum are also
measured for the first time. This helps constrain transverse-momentum-dependent
fragmentation functions. Differences in the shapes and magnitudes of the
measured distributions for the different hadron species provide insights into
the hadronization process for jets predominantly initiated by light quarks.Comment: All figures and tables, along with machine-readable versions and any
supplementary material and additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-013.html (LHCb
public pages
Study of the decay
The decay is studied
in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of TeV
using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5
collected by the LHCb experiment. In the system, the
state observed at the BaBar and Belle experiments is
resolved into two narrower states, and ,
whose masses and widths are measured to be where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second
systematic. The results are consistent with a previous LHCb measurement using a
prompt sample. Evidence of a new
state is found with a local significance of , whose mass and width
are measured to be and , respectively. In addition, evidence of a new decay mode
is found with a significance of
. The relative branching fraction of with respect to the
decay is measured to be , where the first
uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third originates from
the branching fractions of charm hadron decays.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-028.html (LHCb
public pages
Measurement of the ratios of branching fractions and
The ratios of branching fractions
and are measured, assuming isospin symmetry, using a
sample of proton-proton collision data corresponding to 3.0 fb of
integrated luminosity recorded by the LHCb experiment during 2011 and 2012. The
tau lepton is identified in the decay mode
. The measured values are
and
, where the first uncertainty is
statistical and the second is systematic. The correlation between these
measurements is . Results are consistent with the current average
of these quantities and are at a combined 1.9 standard deviations from the
predictions based on lepton flavor universality in the Standard Model.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and
additional information, are available at
https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-039.html (LHCb
public pages
Additive Manufacturing (AM) for Advanced Materials and Structures: Green and Intelligent Development Trend
Additive manufacturing (AM) is an emerging and rapidly evolving technology that has revolutionized the way products are developed, fabricated and commercialized [...
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