2,387 research outputs found
Impacts of gravitational-wave standard siren observation of the Einstein Telescope on weighing neutrinos in cosmology
We investigate the impacts of the gravitational-wave (GW) standard siren
observation of the Einstein Telescope (ET) on constraining the total neutrino
mass. We simulate 1000 GW events that would be observed by the ET in its
10-year observation by taking the standard CDM cosmology as a fiducial
model. We combine the simulated GW data with other cosmological observations
including cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryon acoustic oscillations
(BAO), and type Ia supernovae (SN). We consider three mass hierarchy cases for
the neutrino mass, i.e., normal hierarchy (NH), inverted hierarchy (IH), and
degenerate hierarchy (DH). Using Planck+BAO+SN, we obtain eV
for the NH case, eV for the IH case, and
eV for the DH case. After considering the GW data, i.e., using
Planck+BAO+SN+GW, the constraint results become eV for the
NH case, eV for the IH case, and eV for
the DH case. We find that the GW data can help reduce the upper limits of by 13.7%, 7.5%, and 10.3% for the NH, IH, and DH cases, respectively. In
addition, we find that the GW data can also help break the degeneracies between
and other parameters. We show that the GW data of the ET could
greatly improve the constraint accuracies of cosmological parameters.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Forward Attention in Sequence-to-sequence Acoustic Modelling for Speech Synthesis
This paper proposes a forward attention method for the sequenceto- sequence
acoustic modeling of speech synthesis. This method is motivated by the nature
of the monotonic alignment from phone sequences to acoustic sequences. Only the
alignment paths that satisfy the monotonic condition are taken into
consideration at each decoder timestep. The modified attention probabilities at
each timestep are computed recursively using a forward algorithm. A transition
agent for forward attention is further proposed, which helps the attention
mechanism to make decisions whether to move forward or stay at each decoder
timestep. Experimental results show that the proposed forward attention method
achieves faster convergence speed and higher stability than the baseline
attention method. Besides, the method of forward attention with transition
agent can also help improve the naturalness of synthetic speech and control the
speed of synthetic speech effectively.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Published in IEEE International
Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing 2018 (ICASSP2018
The effects of protein phosphatase inhibitors on the duration of central sensitization of rat dorsal horn neurons following injection of capsaicin
Protein kinases and phosphatases catalyze opposing reactions of phosphorylation and dephosphorylation, which may modulate the function of crucial signaling proteins in central nervous system. This is an important mechanism in the regulation of intracellular signal transduction pathways in nociceptive neurons. To explore the role of protein phosphatase in central sensitization of spinal nociceptive neurons following peripheral noxious stimulation, using electrophysiological recording techniques, we investigated the role of two inhibitors of protein phosphatase type 2A (PP2A), fostriecin and okadaic acid (OA), on the responses of dorsal horn neurons to mechanical stimuli in anesthetized rats following intradermal injection of capsaicin. Central sensitization was initiated by injection of capsaicin into the plantar surface of the left paw. A microdialysis fiber was implanted in the spinal cord dorsal horn for perfusion of ACSF and inhibitors of PP2A, fostriecin and okadaic acid. We found that in ACSF pretreated animals, the responses to innocuous and noxious stimuli following capsaicin injection increased over a period of 15 min after injection and had mostly recovered by 60 min later. However, pre- or post-treatment with the phosphatase inhibitors, fostriecin or OA, significantly enhanced the effects of capsaicin injection by prolonging the responses to more than 3 hours. These results confirm that blockade of protein phosphatase activity may potentiate central sensitization of nociceptive transmission in the spinal cord following capsaicin injection and indicate that protein phosphatase type 2A may be involved in determining the duration of capsaicin-induced central sensitization
Periodontal health and quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
SummaryObjectiveTo evaluate the association of periodontal health and parameters of quality of life assessed in 306 Chinese patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).MethodsPeriodontal status and respiratory function in 306 COPD patients were clinically evaluated and their quality of life was assessed using the standardized St George’s Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ).ResultsThe SGRQ scores were all significantly correlated with major lung function parameters (r2 = −0.37 to −0.28; all p < 0.0001) and Medical Research Council dyspnoea scale (r2 = 0.23 to 0.30; all p < 0.0001). The SGRQ scores also correlated with the 6-min walk test (r2 = −0.15 to −0.13; all p < 0.05). Of periodontal health parameters, missing tooth number and plaque index appeared to be related to the scores of quality of life. The age- and gender-adjusted Pearson’s correlation coefficients between missing teeth and total score, symptoms score, and activity score were 0.09, 0.12, and 0.12, respectively (all p < 0.05). The Pearson’s correlation coefficients between plaque index and symptoms score and activity score were 0.09 and 0.09 (p < 0.05). After adjusting for age, gender, body mass index, and smoking status, missing teeth remained significantly associated with symptom score (p = 0.030) and activity score (p = 0.033) while plaque index was significantly associated with symptom score (p = 0.007).ConclusionsPoor periodontal health as reflected by missing teeth and plaque index was significantly associated with lower quality of life in COPD patients. Our findings indicate the importance of promoting dental care in current public health strategies to improve the quality of life in COPD patients
Protein phosphatase 2A regulates central sensitization in the spinal cord of rats following intradermal injection of capsaicin
BACKGROUND: Intradermal injection of capsaicin into the hind paw of rats induces spinal cord central sensititzation, a process in which the responsiveness of central nociceptive neurons is amplified. In central sensitization, many signal transduction pathways composed of several cascades of intracellular enzymes are involved. As the phosphorylation state of neuronal proteins is strictly controlled and balanced by the opposing activities of protein kinases and phosphatases, the involvement of phosphatases in these events needs to be investigated. This study is designed to determine the influence of serine/threonine protein phosphatase type 2A (PP2A) on the central nociceptive amplification process, which is induced by intradermal injection of capsaicin in rats. RESULTS: In experiment 1, the expression of PP2A protein in rat spinal cord at different time points following capsaicin or vehicle injection was examined using the Western blot method. In experiment 2, an inhibitor of PP2A (okadaic acid, 20 nM or fostriecin, 30 nM) was injected into the subarachnoid space of the spinal cord, and the spontaneous exploratory activity of the rats before and after capsaicin injection was recorded with an automated photobeam activity system. The results showed that PP2A protein expression in the spinal cord was significantly upregulated following intradermal injection of capsaicin in rats. Capsaicin injection caused a significant decrease in exploratory activity of the rats. Thirty minutes after the injection, this decrease in activity had partly recovered. Infusion of a phosphatase inhibitor into the spinal cord intrathecal space enhanced the central sensitization induced by capsaicin by making the decrease in movement last longer. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that PP2A plays an important role in the cellular mechanisms of spinal cord central sensitization induced by intradermal injection of capsaicin in rats, which may have implications in clinical pain therapy
Relationship between EGFR expression, copy number and mutation in lung adenocarcinomas
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study was designed to investigate EGFR protein expression, EGFR copy number and EGFR mutations in lung adenocarcinomas, to explore the relationship of the three markers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>EGFR status was analyzed in surgically resected lung adenocarcinoma samples from 133 Chinese patients by three methods: protein expression (n = 133) by standardized immunohistochemistry (IHC), gene copy number (n = 133) by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and mutation analysis using the Scorpion amplification refractory mutation system (ARMS) (n = 133).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results showed that 68.4% of the samples were positive by IHC, 42.1% were positive by FISH, and 63.9% contained activating kinase domain mutations. EGFR mutations were more frequent in non-smoking patients (p = 0.008), and EGFR mutations were associated with EGFR FISH positivity (p < 0.0001). When using 10% positivity and 2+ as cutoffs, EGFR protein expression was significantly correlated with EGFR FISH positivity (p = 0.012) and EGFR mutations (p = 0.008) after Bonferroni correction.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>EGFR protein expression, EGFR copy number and EGFR mutations were closely related to each other. Standard methods and interpretation criteria need to be established.</p
Intratumoral microbiome impacts immune infiltrates in tumor microenvironment and predicts prognosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients
BackgroundDifferent intratumoral microbiotaexist in different tumors and play a crucial function in carcinogenesis. However, whether they impact clinical outcomes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and their mechanism remain unclear.Methods16S rDNA amplicon sequencing was performed on surgically resected samples from 98 ESCC patients to analyze intratumoral microbiome abundance and composition. Multiplex fluorescent immunohistochemistry staining was used to profile the phenotypes of immune infiltrates in the tumor microenvironment (TME).ResultsPatients with higher intratumoral Shannon index had significantly worse surgical outcomes. When patients were divided into short-term survivors and long-term survivors based on the median survival time, both intratumoral alpha-diversity and beta-diversity were found to be significantly inconsistent, and the relative abundance of Lactobacillus and Leptotrichia emerged as the two microorganisms that probably influenced the survival of ESCC patients. Only Lactobacillus in ESCC was validated to significantly worsen patients’ prognoses and to be positively correlated with the Shannon index. Multivariate analysis revealed that the intratumoral Shannon index, the relative abundance of Lactobacillus, and the pathologic tumor–node–metastasis (pTNM) stage were independently associated with patients’ overall survival. Furthermore, the relative abundance of both Lactobacillus and Shannon index was positively correlated with the proportions of PD-L1+ epithelial cells (ECs) and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). The Shannon index was negatively correlated with the proportions of natural killer (NK) cells in the TME.ConclusionsA high abundance of intratumoral Lactobacillus and bacterial alpha-diversity was associated with the formation of the immunosuppressive TME and predicted poor long-term survival in ESCC patients
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