Learning Temporal Transformations From Time-Lapse Videos

Based on life-long observations of physical, chemical, and biologic phenomena in the natural world, humans can often easily picture in their minds what an object will look like in the future. But, what about computers? In this paper, we learn computational models of object transformations from time-lapse videos. In particular, we explore the use of generative models to create depictions of objects at future times. These models explore several different prediction tasks: generating a future state given a single depiction of an object, generating a future state given two depictions of an object at different times, and generating future states recursively in a recurrent framework. We provide both qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the generated results, and also conduct a human evaluation to compare variations of our models.Comment: ECCV201

Phenotype and management of patients with familial adenomatous polyposis in Hong Kong: perspective of the Hereditary Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry.

OBJECTIVES: To report on the phenotypic spectrum and clinical management of Chinese patients suffering from the rare autosomal dominant colorectal cancer syndrome of familial adenomatous polyposis. DESIGN: Analysis of prospectively collected data from the database of a regional registry. SETTING: The Hereditary Gastrointestinal Cancer Registry, Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred and eight patients with proven familial adenomatous polyposis from 36 local Chinese families with the condition recruited to the Registry from 1995 to 2001. INTERVENTIONS: Screening programme for at-risk family members, prophylactic surgery at presymptomatic diagnosis, and surveillance programme for extracolonic lesions in affected individuals. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Rate of colorectal cancer, type of surgical treatment, spectrum of extracolonic lesions, and management of the syndrome. RESULTS: Fifty patients suffered from colorectal cancer with a mortality rate of 78.0%. The strategy of presymptomatic diagnosis by screening and appropriate prophylactic surgery reduced the incidence of colorectal cancer. Affected individuals were prone to develop potentially serious extracolonic lesions including thyroid cancer (5.7%), desmoid tumour (15.7%), gastroduodenal adenomas (7.1%), duodenal microadenoma (17.1%), and pouch polyposis (17.4%). CONCLUSIONS: Screening and prophylactic surgery are effective ways to prevent colorectal cancer for patients with familial adenomatous polyposis. Lifelong regular surveillance is necessary to detect and manage extracolonic lesions. A dedicated registry is essential to coordinate clinical management and to compile data for furthering knowledge of this rare but complex syndrome.published_or_final_versio

Determinants of 2009 A/H1N1 influenza vaccination among pregnant women in Hong Kong

During the 2009-2010 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic, pregnant women infected with the virus experienced excess morbidity and mortality when compared with other groups. Once a vaccine was available, pregnant women were a priority group for vaccination. Only a few studies have reported on the uptake of 2009 A/H1N1 influenza vaccine among pregnant women during the pandemic and none were from Asia. The purpose of this study was to examine factors associated with 2009 A/H1N1 influenza vaccine uptake among pregnant women in Hong Kong. Using a multi-center, cross-sectional design, we recruited 549 postpartum women from four post-natal wards in Hong Kong over a 4-month period during the second wave of the A/H1N1 influenza pandemic in the winter and spring of 2010. Only 6.2% (n = 34) of participants had received the 2009 A/H1N1 influenza vaccine and 4.9% (n = 27) had received the seasonal influenza vaccine. The most common reasons for not receiving the 2009 A/H1N1 vaccine were fear of causing harm to themselves or their fetus. A high knowledge level (OR = 19.06; 95% CI 5.55, 65.48), more positive attitudes (OR = 3.52; 95% CI 1.37, 9.07), and having a family member who had the 2009 A/H1N1 influenza vaccine (OR = 7.69; 95% CI 2.92, 20.19) were independently and positively associated with vaccination. Study results show an unacceptably low uptake of the pandemic A/H1N1 influenza vaccine among pregnant women in Hong Kong. Interventions to increase influenza vaccine knowledge and uptake among this group should be a priority for future pandemic planning and seasonal vaccination campaigns.published_or_final_versio

Vibrio cholerae O139 synonym Bengal in Hong Kong [12]

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Diverse proteomic alterations in gastric adenocarcinoma

Gastric adenocarcinoma is one of the most common cancers in Asian countries including China. Although its incidence rates in the West are lower than that in Asia, gastric cancer is still a major health problem worldwide, being second only to lung cancers in the number of deaths it causes. Helicobacter pylori infection has been identified as the major pathogen, but the detailed pathogenesis of gastric carcinoma remains elusive. Due to the lack of suitable and specific biomarkers for early detection, most cases of the disease are diagnosed at late stages and the survival rate is low. In this study, we used a proteomic approach to globally analyze the protein profiles of paired surgical specimens of primary gastric adenocarcinoma and nontumor mucosa aiming at identifying specific disease-associated proteins as potential clinical biomarkers and for carcinogenetic study. Compared to nontumor tissues, multiple protein alterations were found in tumor tissues. Some of these alterations involve variations in the expression of cytoskeleton proteins, including an increase in cytokeratin 8 and tropomyosin isoform and a decrease in cytokeratin 20. Co-up-regulations of heat-shock proteins and glycolytic enzymes were observed in tumor tissues, indicating self-protective efforts of cells and the growing energy requirement during malignant transformation. Diverse regulations also occurred with proteins involved in cell proliferation and differentiation, such as GMP reductase 2 and creatine kinase B, and proteins bearing potential tumor suppressor activities, including prohibitin and selenium binding protein 1. More interestingly, a human stomach-specific protein, 18 kDa antrum mucosa protein, was found to be dramatically under-expressed in cancer tissues, implicating a possible special pathological role for this protein in gastric carcinogenesis. Further comprehensive evaluation by globally considering the altered factors may result in the discovery of a biomarker index for effective assessment of the disease and may provide in-depth information for better understanding the pathogenesis of gastric cancer.postprin

Microsatellite instability, Epstein-Barr virus, mutation of type II transforming growth factor receptor and BAX in gastric carcinomas in Hong Kong Chinese

Conference Theme: Challenges to specialists in the 21st centurypublished_or_final_versio

Comparative genomic analysis of pre-epidemic and epidemic Zika virus strains for virological factors potentially associated with the rapidly expanding epidemic

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Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus delays apoptotic responses via activation of STAT3

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus continues to pose pandemic threat, but there is a lack of understanding of its pathogenesis. We compared the apoptotic responses triggered by HPAI H5N1 and low pathogenic H1N1 viruses using physiologically relevant respiratory epithelial cells. We demonstrated that H5N1 viruses delayed apoptosis in primary human bronchial and alveolar epithelial cells (AECs) compared to H1N1 virus. Both caspase-8 and -9 were activated by H5N1 and H1N1 viruses in AECs, while H5N1 differentially up-regulated TRAIL. H5N1-induced apoptosis was reduced by TRAIL receptor silencing. More importantly, STAT3 knock-down increased apoptosis by H5N1 infection suggesting that H5N1 virus delays apoptosis through activation of STAT3. Taken together, we demonstrate that STAT3 is involved in H5N1-delayed apoptosis compared to H1N1. Since delay in apoptosis prolongs the duration of virus replication and production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and TRAIL from H5N1-infected cells, which contribute to orchestrate cytokine storm and tissue damage, our results suggest that STAT3 may play a previously unsuspected role in H5N1 pathogenesis.published_or_final_versio

Influenza H5N1 virus infection of polarized human alveolar epithelial cells and lung microvascular endothelial cells

Background: Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus is entrenched in poultry in Asia and Africa and continues to infect humans zoonotically causing acute respiratory disease syndrome and death. There is evidence that the virus may sometimes spread beyond respiratory tract to cause disseminated infection. The primary target cell for HPAI H5N1 virus in human lung is the alveolar epithelial cell. Alveolar epithelium and its adjacent lung microvascular endothelium form host barriers to the initiation of infection and dissemination of influenza H5N1 infection in humans. These are polarized cells and the polarity of influenza virus entry and egress as well as the secretion of cytokines and chemokines from the virus infected cells are likely to be central to the pathogenesis of human H5N1 disease.Aim: To study influenza A (H5N1) virus replication and host innate immune responses in polarized primary human alveolar epithelial cells and lung microvascular endothelial cells and its relevance to the pathogenesis of human H5N1 disease.Methods: We use an in vitro model of polarized primary human alveolar epithelial cells and lung microvascular endothelial cells grown in transwell culture inserts to compare infection with influenza A subtype H1N1 and H5N1 viruses via the apical or basolateral surfaces.Results: We demonstrate that both influenza H1N1 and H5N1 viruses efficiently infect alveolar epithelial cells from both apical and basolateral surface of the epithelium but release of newly formed virus is mainly from the apical side of the epithelium. In contrast, influenza H5N1 virus, but not H1N1 virus, efficiently infected polarized microvascular endothelial cells from both apical and basolateral aspects. This provides a mechanistic explanation for how H5N1 virus may infect the lung from systemic circulation. Epidemiological evidence has implicated ingestion of virus-contaminated foods as the source of infection in some instances and our data suggests that viremia, secondary to, for example, gastro-intestinal infection, can potentially lead to infection of the lung. HPAI H5N1 virus was a more potent inducer of cytokines (e.g. IP-10, RANTES, IL-6) in comparison to H1N1 virus in alveolar epithelial cells, and these virus-induced chemokines were secreted onto both the apical and basolateral aspects of the polarized alveolar epithelium.Conclusion: The predilection of viruses for different routes of entry and egress from the infected cell is important in understanding the pathogenesis of influenza H5N1 infection and may help unravel the pathogenesis of human H5N1 disease. © 2009 Chan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.published_or_final_versio

Hyperornithinaemia-hyperammonaemia-homocitrullinuria syndrome: a treatable genetic liver disease warranting urgent diagnosis

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