Integration of Genetic Programming and TABU Search Mechanism for Automatic Detection of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Cervical Spondylosis

Cervical spondylosis is a kind of degenerative disease which not only occurs in elder patients. The age distribution of patients is unfortunately decreasing gradually. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the best tool to confirm the cervical spondylosis severity but it requires radiologist to spend a lot of time for image check and interpretation. In this study, we proposed a prediction model to evaluate the cervical spine condition of patients by using MRI data. Furthermore, to ensure the computing efficiency of the proposed model, we adopted a heuristic programming, genetic programming (GP), to build the core of refereeing engine by combining the TABU search (TS) with the evolutionary GP. Finally, to validate the accuracy of the proposed model, we implemented experiments and compared our prediction results with radiologist’s diagnosis to the same MRI image. The experiment found that using clinical indicators to optimize the TABU list in GP+TABU got better fitness than the other two methods and the accuracy rate of our proposed model can achieve 88% on average. We expected the proposed model can help radiologists reduce the interpretation effort and improve the relationship between doctors and patients

Development of a recombinase-aided amplification combined with a lateral flow dipstick assay for rapid detection of H7 subtype avian influenza virus

Avian influenza viruses (AIV) pose a significant persistent threat to the public health and safety. It is estimated that there have been over 100 outbreaks caused by various H7 subtypes of avian influenza viruses (AIV-H7) worldwide, resulting in over 33 million deaths of poultry. In this study, we developed a recombinase-aided amplification combined with a lateral flow dipstick assay for the detection of hemagglutinin (HA) genes to provide technical support for rapid clinical detection of AIV-H7. The results showed that the assay can complete the reaction within 30 min at a temperature of 39°C. Specificity tests demonstrated that there was no cross-reactivity with other common poultry pathogens, including Newcastle disease virus (NDV) and infections bronchitis virus (IBV). The detection limit of this assay was 1 × 101 copies/μL, while RT-qPCR method was 1 × 101 copies/μL, and RT-PCR was 1 × 102 copies/μL. The κ value of the RT-RAA-LFD and RT-PCR assay in 132 avian clinical samples was 0.9169 (p < 0.001). These results indicated that the developed RT-RAA-LFD assay had good specificity, sensitivity, stability and repeatability and may be used for rapid detection of AIV-H7 in clinical diagnosis

Comparative study of mesenchymal stem cells from C57BL/10 and mdx mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been studied and applied extensively because of their ability to self-renew and differentiate into various cell types. Since most human diseases models are murine, mouse MSCs should have been studied in detail. The mdx mouse – a Duchenne muscular dystrophy model – was produced by introducing a point mutation in the dystrophin gene. To understand the role of dystrophin in MSCs, we compared MSCs from mdx and C57BL/10 mice, focusing particularly on the aspects of light and electron microscopic morphology, immunophenotyping, and differentiation potential.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our study showed that at passage 10, mdx-MSCs exhibited increased heterochromatin, larger vacuoles, and more lysosomes under electron microscopy compared to C57BL/10-MSCs. C57BL/10-MSCs formed a few myotubes, while mdx-MSCs did not at the same passages. By passage 21, mdx-MSCs but not C57BL/10-MSCs had gradually lost their proliferative ability. In addition, a significant difference in the expression of CD34, not Sca-1 and CD11b, was observed between the MSCs from the 2 mice.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our current study reveals that the MSCs from the 2 mice, namely, C57BL/10 and mdx, exhibit differences in proliferative and myogenic abilities. The results suggest that the changes in mouse MSC behavior may be influenced by lack of dystrophin protein in mdx mouse.</p

Highlights of the 2nd International Symposium on Tribbles and Diseases: Tribbles tremble in therapeutics for immunity, metabolism, fundamental cell biology and cancer

The Tribbles (TRIB) family of pseudokinase proteins has been shown to play key roles in cell cycle, metabolic diseases, chronic inflammatory disease, and cancer development. A better understanding of the mechanisms of TRIB pseudokinases could provide new insights for disease development and help promote TRIB proteins as novel therapeutic targets for drug discovery. At the 2nd International Symposium on Tribbles and Diseases held on May 7‒9, 2018 in Beijing, China, a group of leading Tribbles scientists reported their findings and ongoing studies about the effects of the different TRIB proteins in the areas of immunity, metabolism, fundamental cell biology and cancer. Here, we summarize important and insightful overviews from 4 keynote lectures, 13 plenary lectures and 8 short talks that took place during this meeting. These findings may offer new insights for the understanding of the roles of TRIB pseudokinases in the development of various diseases

Dendritic Cell‐Mediated Cross‐Priming by a Bispecific Neutralizing Antibody Boosts Cytotoxic T Cell Responses and Protects Mice against SARS‐CoV‐2

SARS-CoV-2 B.1.351 and B.1.167.2 viruses used in this study were obtained through the European Virus Archive Global (EVA-GLOBAL) project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 653316. SARS-CoV-2 B.1 (MAD6 isolate) was kindly provided by José M. Honrubia and Luis Enjuanes (CNB-CSIC, Madrid, Spain). The authors thank Centro de Investigación en Sanidad Animal (CISA)-Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrarias (INIA-CSIC) (Valdeolmos, Madrid, Spain) for the BSL-3 facilities. Research in LAV laboratory was funded by the BBVA Foundation (Ayudas Fundación BBVA a Equipos de Investigación Científica SARS-CoV-2 y COVID19); the MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (PID2020-117323RB-I00 and PDC2021-121711-I00), partially supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) (DTS20/00089), partially supported by the ERDF, the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC 19084); the CRIS Cancer Foundation (FCRISIFI-2018 and FCRIS-2021-0090), the Fundación Caixa-Health Research (HR21-00761 project IL7R_LungCan), and the Comunidad de Madrid (P2022/BMD-7225 NEXT_GEN_CART_MAD-CM). Work in the DS laboratory was funded by the CNIC; the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement ERC-2016-Consolidator Grant 725091; MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (PID2019-108157RB); Comunidad de Madrid (B2017/BMD-3733 Immunothercan-CM); Atresmedia (Constantes y Vitales prize); Fondo Solidario Juntos (Banco Santander); and “La Caixa” Foundation (LCF/PR/HR20/00075). The CNIC was supported by the ISCIII, the MCIN and the Pro CNIC Foundation and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (CEX2020- 001041-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). Research in RD laboratory was supported by the ISCIII (PI2100989) and CIBERINFEC; the European Commission Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (grant numbers 731868 project VIRUSCAN FETPROACT-2016, and 101046084 project EPIC-CROWN-2); and the Fundación CaixaHealth Research (grant number HR18-00469 project StopEbola). Research in CNB-CSIC laboratory was funded by Fondo Supera COVID19 (Crue Universidades-Banco Santander) grant, CIBERINFEC, and Spanish Research Council (CSIC) grant 202120E079 (to J.G.-A.), CSIC grant 2020E84 (to M.E.), MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (PID2020- 114481RB-I00 to J.G-A. and M.E.), and by the European CommissionNextGenerationEU, through CSIC’s Global Health Platform (PTI Salud Global) to J.G.-A. and M.E. Work in the CIB-CSIC laboratory was supported by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (PID2019-104544GB-I00 and 2023AEP105 to CA, and PID2020-113225GB-I00 to F.J.B.). Cryo-EM data were collected at the Maryland Center for Advanced Molecular Analyses which was supported by MPOWER (The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership). I.H.-M. receives the support of a fellowship from la Caixa Foundation (ID 100010434, fellowship code: LCF/BQ/IN17/11620074) and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 71367. L.R.-P. was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the Immunology Chair, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria/Merck.S

ATOMS : ALMA Three-millimeter Observations of Massive Star-forming regions - I. Survey description and a first look at G9.62+0.19

The ATOMS, standing for ALMA Three-millimeter Observations of Massive Star-forming regions, survey has observed 146 active star-forming regions with ALMA band 3, aiming to systematically investigate the spatial distribution of various dense gas tracers in a large sample of Galactic massive clumps, to study the roles of stellar feedback in star formation, and to characterize filamentary structures inside massive clumps. In this work, the observations, data analysis, and example science of the ATOMS survey are presented, using a case study for the G9.62+0.19 complex. Toward this source, some transitions, commonly assumed to trace dense gas, including CS J = 2-1, HCO+ J = 1-0, and HCN J = 1-0, are found to show extended gas emission in low-density regions within the clump; less than 25 per cent of their emission is from dense cores. SO, CH3OH, (HCN)-C-13, and HC3N show similar morphologies in their spatial distributions and reveal well the dense cores. Widespread narrow SiO emission is present (over similar to 1 pc), which may be caused by slow shocks from large-scale colliding flows or HII regions. Stellar feedback from an expanding HII region has greatly reshaped the natal clump, significantly changed the spatial distribution of gas, and may also account for the sequential high-mass star formation in the G9.62+0.19 complex. The ATOMS survey data can be jointly analysed with other survey data, e.g. MALT90, Orion B, EMPIRE, ALMA IMF, and ALMAGAL, to deepen our understandings of 'dense gas' star formation scaling relations and massive protocluster formation.Peer reviewe

ATOMS : ALMA three-millimeter observations of massive star-forming regions - II. Compact objects in ACA observations and star formation scaling relations

We report studies of the relationships between the total bolometric luminosity (L-bol or L-TIR) and the molecular line luminosities of J = 1 - 0 transitions of (HCN)-C-13, (HCO+)-C-13, HCN, and HCO+ with data obtained from ACA observations in the 'ATOMS' survey of 146 active Galactic star-forming regions. The correlations between L-bol and molecular line luminosities L-mol' of the four transitions all appear to be approximately linear. Line emission of isotopologues shows as large scatters in L-bol-L-mol' relations as their main line emission. The log(L-bol/L-mol') for different molecular line tracers have similar distributions. The L-bol-to-L-mol' ratios do not change with galactocentric distances (R-GC) and clump masses (M-clump). The molecular line luminosity ratios (HCN-to-HCO+, (HCN)-C-13-to-(HCO+)-C-13, HCN-to-(HCN)-C-13, and HCO+-to-(HCO+)-C-13) all appear constant against L-bol, dust temperature (T-d), M-clump, and R-GC. Our studies suggest that both the main lines and isotopologue lines are good tracers of the total masses of dense gas in Galactic molecular clumps. The large optical depths of main lines do not affect the interpretation of the slopes in star formation relations. We find that the mean star formation efficiency (SFE) of massive Galactic clumps in the 'ATOMS' survey is reasonably consistent with other measures of the SFE for dense gas, even those using very different tracers or examining very different spatial scales.Peer reviewe