Class, type and grade of cattle and calves sold on Tennessee livestock auction markets

Little is known about the characteristics of the cattle and calves sold through the auction markets of the state. Because of imperfect knowledge with respect to the animal characteristics, this study was undertaken with the following objective in mind: To present information on the class, type of breeding and grade distribution by class and type of cattle and calves sold through the auction markets. It is hoped that the information gained will be of considerable value to the Tennessee livestock industry

GAN Prior based Null-Space Learning for Consistent Super-Resolution

Consistency and realness have always been the two critical issues of image super-resolution. While the realness has been dramatically improved with the use of GAN prior, the state-of-the-art methods still suffer inconsistencies in local structures and colors (e.g., tooth and eyes). In this paper, we show that these inconsistencies can be analytically eliminated by learning only the null-space component while fixing the range-space part. Further, we design a pooling-based decomposition (PD), a universal range-null space decomposition for super-resolution tasks, which is concise, fast, and parameter-free. PD can be easily applied to state-of-the-art GAN Prior based SR methods to eliminate their inconsistencies, neither compromising the realness nor bringing extra parameters or computational costs. Besides, our ablation studies reveal that PD can replace pixel-wise losses for training and achieve better generalization performance when facing unseen downsamplings or even real-world degradation. Experiments show that the use of PD refreshes state-of-the-art SR performance and speeds up the convergence of training up to 2~10 times.Comment: Accepted by AAAI 202

DiffLLE: Diffusion-guided Domain Calibration for Unsupervised Low-light Image Enhancement

Existing unsupervised low-light image enhancement methods lack enough effectiveness and generalization in practical applications. We suppose this is because of the absence of explicit supervision and the inherent gap between real-world scenarios and the training data domain. In this paper, we develop Diffusion-based domain calibration to realize more robust and effective unsupervised Low-Light Enhancement, called DiffLLE. Since the diffusion model performs impressive denoising capability and has been trained on massive clean images, we adopt it to bridge the gap between the real low-light domain and training degradation domain, while providing efficient priors of real-world content for unsupervised models. Specifically, we adopt a naive unsupervised enhancement algorithm to realize preliminary restoration and design two zero-shot plug-and-play modules based on diffusion model to improve generalization and effectiveness. The Diffusion-guided Degradation Calibration (DDC) module narrows the gap between real-world and training low-light degradation through diffusion-based domain calibration and a lightness enhancement curve, which makes the enhancement model perform robustly even in sophisticated wild degradation. Due to the limited enhancement effect of the unsupervised model, we further develop the Fine-grained Target domain Distillation (FTD) module to find a more visual-friendly solution space. It exploits the priors of the pre-trained diffusion model to generate pseudo-references, which shrinks the preliminary restored results from a coarse normal-light domain to a finer high-quality clean field, addressing the lack of strong explicit supervision for unsupervised methods. Benefiting from these, our approach even outperforms some supervised methods by using only a simple unsupervised baseline. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superior effectiveness of the proposed DiffLLE

Real-world retrospective study of immune checkpoint inhibitors in combination with radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy as a bladder-sparing treatment strategy for muscle-invasive bladder urothelial cancer

BackgroundRecent developments in MIBC treatment suggest good efficacy of bladder sparing treatment combined with immune checkpoint inhibitor. However, there is no standard treatment mode. A retrospective analysis was conducted to reveal the efficacy and safety of PD-1 inhibitor in combination with radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed 25 patients with MIBC T2-T3N0M0 disease who were unfit or unwilling to undergo RC. These patients underwent the maximum TURBT followed by PD-1 inhibitor (Tislelizumab or Toripalimab) in combination with radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy (gemcitabine plus cisplatin) between April 2020 and May 2022. The primary outcome was clinical complete response (cCR) rate. The secondary outcomes were disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS).ResultsRevised: Of 25 patients, 22 were T2 (88%), while 3 were T3 (12%). The median age is 65 years (51–80). Twenty-one patients had programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) of 1 or more, and 4 patients had CPS<1 or unknown. Sixteen patients received chemoradiotherapy. Tislelizumab and Toripalimab were administered to 19 and 6 patients, respectively. The median number of cycles of immunotherapy was 8. Twenty-three patients (92%) achieved cCR. Following a median of 13 months of follow-up (range, 5-34 months), 1-year DFS and OS rate were 92% and 96%, respectively. In the univariate analysis, T stage significantly influenced OS and ORR, and efficacy evaluation significantly influenced OS, DFS, and ORR. The expression of PD-L1 and chemotherapy had no effect on prognosis. In the multivariate analysis, no independent prognostic factors were found. Grade 3 or 4 adverse events (AE) were reported in 35.7% patients.ConclusionsBladder sparing therapy with PD-1 inhibitor in combination with radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy is feasible, safe, and highly effective for patients who were unfit or unwilling to undergo RC

The progress of dorsal vascular complex control strategy in radical prostatectomy

Radical prostatectomy has undergone a development from open to laparoscopic surgery to a surgical robotic approach. With improved surgical equipment and the continuous development of surgical techniques, various surgical strategies for controlling the dorsal vascular complex (DVC) during RP have been investigated, which affect intraoperative blood loss, postoperative tumour control and postoperative urinary and sexual function. The present narrative review summarizes the latest anatomical information about the prostatic apex and DVC and then describes the three types of DVC control. More detailed anatomy of the DVC is required and the optimal DVC control under different situations needs further research

Pretreatment Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio as a Predictor in Bladder Cancer and Metastatic or Unresectable Urothelial Carcinoma Patients: a Pooled Analysis of Comparative Studies

Background/Aims: Emerging studies have shown that the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is a potential predictor in various tumors. Our study was conducted to assess the prognostic value of the pretreatment NLR in bladder cancer and metastatic or unresectable urothelial carcinoma (mUC or uUC) patients up to July 2017. The correlation between the pretreatment NLR and pathological characteristics was also evaluated in bladder cancer patients. Methods: The hazard ratio (HR) and odds ratio (OR) with the 95% confidence interval (CI) were extracted or calculated from the included studies for further pooled analysis. A total of 21 studies were included in a pooled analysis. Results: The pooled results indicated that a high pretreatment NLR was associated with reduced overall survival (OS) (HR=1.27, 95% CI=1.12-1.43), relapse-free survival (RFS) (HR=1.41, 95% CI=1.23-1.60), progression-free survival (PFS) (HR=1.75, 95% CI=1.36-2.15), disease-specific survival (DSS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) (HR=1.27, 95% CI=1.19-1.35) in the bladder cancer patients. Additionally, an elevated pretreatment NLR suggested a worse OS rate in the mUC or uUC patients (HR=1.63, 95% CI=1.34-1.91). The pooled ORs and 95% CIs showed that a high pretreatment NLR could be a risk indicator for certain pathological features, such as lymphovascular invasion, a positive margin status and advanced tumor stage. Conclusions: our results showed that a high pretreatment NLR predicted poor prognosis in bladder cancer, mUC and uUC patients

The YTHDC1/GLUT3/RNF183 axis forms a positive feedback loop that modulates glucose metabolism and bladder cancer progression

Abstract Aberrant glucose metabolism is a characteristic of bladder cancer. Hyperglycemia contributes to the development and progression of bladder cancer. However, the underlying mechanism by which hyperglycemia promotes the aggressiveness of cancers, especially bladder cancer, is still incompletely understood. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification is a kind of methylation modification occurring at the N6 position of adenosine that is important for the pathogenesis of urological tumors. Recently, it was found that the m6A reader YTHDC1 is regulated by high-glucose conditions. In our study, we revealed that YTHDC1 is not only regulated by high-glucose conditions but is also downregulated in bladder cancer tissue and associated with the prognosis of cancer. We also showed that YTHDC1 suppresses the malignant progression of and the glycolytic process in bladder cancer cells in an m6A-dependent manner and determined that this effect is partially mediated by GLUT3. Moreover, GLUT3 was found to destabilize YTHDC1 by upregulating RNF183 expression. In summary, we identified a novel YTHDC1/GLUT3/RNF183 feedback loop that regulates disease progression and glucose metabolism in bladder cancer. Collectively, this study provides new insight regarding the pathogenesis of bladder cancer under hyperglycemic conditions and might reveal ideal candidates for the development of drugs for bladder cancer

CHIP protects against septic acute kidney injury by inhibiting NLRP3-mediated pyroptosis

Summary: Septic acute kidney injury (S-AKI), the most common type of acute kidney injury (AKI), is intimately related to pyroptosis and oxidative stress in its pathogenesis. Carboxy-terminus of Hsc70-interacting protein (CHIP), a U-box E3 ligase, modulates oxidative stress by degrading its targeted proteins. The role of CHIP in S-AKI and its relevance with pyroptosis have not been investigated. In this study, we showed that CHIP was downregulated in renal proximal tubular cells in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced S-AKI. Besides, the extent of redox injuries in S-AKI was attenuated by CHIP overexpression or activation but accentuated by CHIP gene disruption. Mechanistically, our work demonstrated that CHIP interacted with and ubiquitinated NLRP3 to promote its proteasomal degradation, leading to the inhibition of NLRP3/ACS inflammasome-mediated pyroptosis. In summary, this study revealed that CHIP ubiquitinated NLRP3 to alleviate pyroptosis in septic renal injuries, suggesting that CHIP might be a potential therapeutic target for S-AKI

Serum omentin-1 level in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia

Backgroud: To evaluate the relationship between omentin-1 and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). BPH is the most common urological disease in elderly men worldwide. Lower serum omentin-1 levels were reported to be negatively associated with the incidence of inflammation, diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome, which all play a role in the development of BPH. To the best of our knowledge, the relationship between omentin-1 and BPH has not been investigated previously. Methods: A total of 70 males participated in this study, including forty patients diagnosed with BPH and thirty healthy males. The anthropometric measurements and the biochemical parameters were measured in this study. We evaluated serum omentin-1 levels and the correlation with those data. We also test the gene expression of IL-8, IL-18 in BPH group using the TURP tissues. Results: The serum omentin-1 levels were lower in the BPH patients than in the control group (27.95 ± 4.18 versus 32.03 ± 5.46, p < 0.001). The general characteristics and biochemical parameters were investigated, and a negative correlation was found between serum omentin-1 levels and BMI in the BPH group (r = − 0.391, p = 0.013) as well as the whole group (r = − 0.457, p < 0.001). Multiple-factor binary regression analysis revealed that serum omentin-1was a protective factor of BPH development. Furthermore, lower serum omentin-1 levels were associated with higher mRNA expression of IL-8 or IL-18 in the BPH group. Conclusion: Omentin-1 may suppress the development of BPH and Lower serum omentin-1 levels in BPH patients might associated with higher prostate volume and higher IL-8 and IL-18 expression levels in their prostatic cells.Medicine, Faculty ofOther UBCNon UBCUrologic Sciences, Department ofReviewedFacult