Influence of the presence of B chromosomes on DNA damage in Crepis capillaris

The sensitivity of different plant species to mutagenic agents is related to the DNA content and organization of the chromatin, which have been described in ABCW and bodyguard hypotheses, respectively. Plant species that have B chromosomes are good models for the study of these hypotheses. This study presents an analysis of the correlation between the occurrence of B chromosomes and the DNA damage that is induced by the chemical mutagen, maleic hydrazide (MH), in Crepis capillaris plants using comet assay. The presence of B chromosomes has a detectable impact on the level of DNA damage. The level of DNA damage after MH treatment was correlated with the number of B chromosomes and it was observed that it increased significantly in plants with 3B chromosomes. We did not find evidence of the protective role from chemical mutagens of the constitutive heterochromatin for euchromatin in relation to DNA damage. The DNA damage involving the 25S rDNA sequences was analyzed using the comet-FISH technique. Fragmentation within or near the 25S rDNA involved the loci on the A and B chromosomes. The presence of B chromosomes in C. capillaris cells had an influence on the level of DNA damage that involves the 25S rDNA region

A survey on bias in machine learning research

Current research on bias in machine learning often focuses on fairness, while overlooking the roots or causes of bias. However, bias was originally defined as a "systematic error," often caused by humans at different stages of the research process. This article aims to bridge the gap between past literature on bias in research by providing taxonomy for potential sources of bias and errors in data and models. The paper focus on bias in machine learning pipelines. Survey analyses over forty potential sources of bias in the machine learning (ML) pipeline, providing clear examples for each. By understanding the sources and consequences of bias in machine learning, better methods can be developed for its detecting and mitigating, leading to fairer, more transparent, and more accurate ML models.Comment: Submitted to journal. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2308.0946

The (de)biasing effect of GAN-based augmentation methods on skin lesion images

New medical datasets are now more open to the public, allowing for better and more extensive research. Although prepared with the utmost care, new datasets might still be a source of spurious correlations that affect the learning process. Moreover, data collections are usually not large enough and are often unbalanced. One approach to alleviate the data imbalance is using data augmentation with Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to extend the dataset with high-quality images. GANs are usually trained on the same biased datasets as the target data, resulting in more biased instances. This work explored unconditional and conditional GANs to compare their bias inheritance and how the synthetic data influenced the models. We provided extensive manual data annotation of possibly biasing artifacts on the well-known ISIC dataset with skin lesions. In addition, we examined classification models trained on both real and synthetic data with counterfactual bias explanations. Our experiments showed that GANs inherited biases and sometimes even amplified them, leading to even stronger spurious correlations. Manual data annotation and synthetic images are publicly available for reproducible scientific research.Comment: Accepted to MICCAI202

Targeted Data Augmentation for bias mitigation

The development of fair and ethical AI systems requires careful consideration of bias mitigation, an area often overlooked or ignored. In this study, we introduce a novel and efficient approach for addressing biases called Targeted Data Augmentation (TDA), which leverages classical data augmentation techniques to tackle the pressing issue of bias in data and models. Unlike the laborious task of removing biases, our method proposes to insert biases instead, resulting in improved performance. To identify biases, we annotated two diverse datasets: a dataset of clinical skin lesions and a dataset of male and female faces. These bias annotations are published for the first time in this study, providing a valuable resource for future research. Through Counterfactual Bias Insertion, we discovered that biases associated with the frame, ruler, and glasses had a significant impact on models. By randomly introducing biases during training, we mitigated these biases and achieved a substantial decrease in bias measures, ranging from two-fold to more than 50-fold, while maintaining a negligible increase in the error rate

Wpływ wybranych czynników na intensywność bólu lędźwiowego odcinka kręgosłupa w ciągu sześciu miesięcy od wystąpienia dolegliwości

Introduction. Low-back pain (LBP), resulting from a slipped disc, exerts a long-lasting and irritating impact on all aspects of human life.Aim. The study aimed at assessing the effect of selected factors on the severity of pain measured on the Visual Analo­gue Scale (VAS) in patients who were treated conservatively due to a slipped disc in the lumbar section of the spine.Material and Methods. A total of 400 patients of the Outpatient Neurosurgical Clinic at the St. Lukas Regional Hospital in Tarnow, Poland, were involved in the survey. The observations (weight status and pain intensity) were conducted twice: when the problems appeared and after 6 months.Results. Obese and overweight individuals (79.5%) and the ones with android adiposity (86%) were most numerously represented in the research groups. The most severe low-back and leg pain in surveys one and two was repor­ted by obese patients and the ones who belonged to the group of senior participants.Conclusions. Conservative treatment combined with pro-health instructions brought the greatest subjective pain relief. The worst effects were achieved by obese patients. (JNNN 2015;4(1):24–29)Wstęp. Ból lędźwiowego odcinka kręgosłupa spowodowany dyskopatią wywiera długotrwały negatywny wpływ na wszystkie aspekty życia.Cel. Ocena wpływu wybranych czynników na nasilenie bólu mierzonego na wizualnej skali analogowej (VAS) u pacjentów, którzy byli leczeni zachowawczo z powodu dyskopatii w odcinku lędźwiowym kręgosłupa.Materiał i metody. Badaniom poddano łącznie 400 pacjentów Poradni Neurochirurgicznej Szpitala Świętego Łukasza w Tarnowie, w Polsce. Obserwacja (ocena stanu odżywienia i intensywności bólu) była prowadzona dwukrotnie: w momencie pojawienia się dolegliwości i po sześciu miesiącach.Wyniki. Osoby z nadwagą lub otyłością (79,5%) i z androgenicznym typem budowy ciała (86%) były najliczniej reprezentowane w grupach badanych. Największe nasilenie bólu w kręgosłupie i kończynach dolnych zarówno w pierwszym, jak i drugim badaniu zanotowano u osób z otyłością i osób z najstarszej grupy wiekowej.Wnioski. Największą subiektywną ulgę w bólu przyniosło połączenie leczenia zachowawczego z edukacją prozdrowotną. Najgorsze efekty uzyskano u pacjentów otyłych. (PNN 2015;4(1):24–29

Historia i zasady funkcjonowania Rady Biznesu Wydziału Ekonomiczno-Socjologicznego UŁ

Książka powstała dzięki dofinansowaniu z Urzędu Miasta Łodzi na realizację projektu pt. „Uniwersytet Łódzki − uczelnia bliżej praktyki” w ramach Promocji Łodzi Akademickiej

Oleacein and foam cell formation in human monocyte-derived macrophages: a potential strategy against early and advanced atherosclerotic lesions

Background: Oleacein is a secoiridoid group polyphenol found mostly in Olea europea L. and Ligustrum vulgare L. (Oleaceae). The aim of the present study was to investigate a potential role of oleacein in prevention of the foam cell formation. Materials and Methods: Oleacein was isolated from Ligustrum vulgare leaves. Human monocyte-derived macrophages were obtained from monocytes cultured with Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF)Then, cells were incubated with 20 M or 50 M of oleacein and with oxidized low-density lipoprotein (oxLDL) (50 g/mL). Visualization of lipid deposition within macrophages was carried out using Oil-Red-O. Expression of CD36, Scavenger receptor A1 (SRA1) and Lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor 1 (LOX-1) was determined by Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and by flow cytometry. Apoptosis was determined by flow cytometry using Annexin V assay. STAT3 and Acyl-coenzyme A:cholesterol acyltransferase type 1 (ACAT1)levels were determined by ELISA. P-STAT3, P-JAK1, P-JAK2 expressions were determined by Western blot (WB). Results: Oleacein in dose-dependent manner significantly reduced lipid deposits in macrophages as well as their expression of selected scavenger receptors. The highest decrease of expression was found for CD36 and SRA1 receptors, from above 20% to more than 75% compared to oxLDL and the lowest for LOX-1 receptor, from approx. 8% to approx. 25% compared to oxLDL-stimulated macrophages. Oleacein significantly reduced (2.5-fold) early apoptosis of oxLDL-stimulated macrophages. Moreover, oleacein significantly increased the protein expression of JAK/STAT3 pathway and had no effect on ACAT1 level. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates, for the first time, that oleacein inhibits foam cell formation in human monocyte-derived macrophages and thus can be a valuable tool in the prevention of early and advanced atherosclerotic lesions