Fine-Grained Fashion Similarity Learning by Attribute-Specific Embedding Network

This paper strives to learn fine-grained fashion similarity. In this similarity paradigm, one should pay more attention to the similarity in terms of a specific design/attribute among fashion items, which has potential values in many fashion related applications such as fashion copyright protection. To this end, we propose an Attribute-Specific Embedding Network (ASEN) to jointly learn multiple attribute-specific embeddings in an end-to-end manner, thus measure the fine-grained similarity in the corresponding space. With two attention modules, i.e., Attribute-aware Spatial Attention and Attribute-aware Channel Attention, ASEN is able to locate the related regions and capture the essential patterns under the guidance of the specified attribute, thus make the learned attribute-specific embeddings better reflect the fine-grained similarity. Extensive experiments on four fashion-related datasets show the effectiveness of ASEN for fine-grained fashion similarity learning and its potential for fashion reranking.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figutes. Accepted by AAAI 2020. Code and data are available at https://github.com/Maryeon/ase

Effects of Intravitreal Ranibizumab Injection on Chinese Patients with Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration: 5-Year Follow-Up Results

Purpose. To observe the effect of intravitreal ranibizumab injection on wet age-related macular degeneration (wAMD) over 5 years in Chinese patients. Methods. Thirty-seven patients who were diagnosed with wAMD in our hospital from June 2007 to June 2014 were retrospectively reviewed. The PRN regimen and the treatment and extend regimen were applied. Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), number of ranibizumab injections, and changes in the choroidal neovascularization (CNV) lesion over 5 years were analyzed. Results. The mean BCVA measured by the ETDRS chart at baseline was 47.4 and 5 years after the treatment it was 34.89 letters, which was significantly different (p=0.013). Fourteen eyes (37.8%) had improved visual acuity after 5 years. The number of injections in 5 years was 11.53, and most of the injections were in the first two years. Seventeen (45.9%) cases developed fibrous lesions, and 2 (5.4%) cases had atrophic lesions after 5 years. The fibrosis/atrophy was significantly correlated with the injection numbers (Pearson, r=0.663, and p=0.000). Conclusion. Most of the patients can maintain visual acuity treated by ranibizumab in the first 3 years. After 5 years, some patients can still improve or maintain visual acuity. Fibrous scarring of the lesion is the main reason for a decrease in vision of wAMD patients

IL-22 Signaling Contributes to West Nile Encephalitis Pathogenesis

The Th17 cytokine, IL-22, regulates host immune responses to extracellular pathogens. Whether IL-22 plays a role in viral infection, however, is poorly understood. We report here that Il22-/- mice were more resistant to lethal West Nile virus (WNV) encephalitis, but had similar viral loads in the periphery compared to wild type (WT) mice. Viral loads, leukocyte infiltrates, proinflammatory cytokines and apoptotic cells in the central nervous system (CNS) of Il22-/- mice were also strikingly reduced. Further examination showed that Cxcr2, a chemokine receptor that plays a non-redundant role in mediating neutrophil migration, was significantly reduced in Il22-/- compared to WT leukocytes. Expression of Cxcr2 ligands, cxcl1 and cxcl5, was lower in Il22-/- brains than wild type mice. Correspondingly, neutrophil migration from the blood into the brain was attenuated following lethal WNV infection of Il22-/- mice. Our results suggest that IL-22 signaling exacerbates lethal WNV encephalitis likely by promoting WNV neuroinvasion

Pomegranate Juice and Extract Consumption Increases the Resistance to UVB-induced Erythema and Changes the Skin Microbiome in Healthy Women: a Randomized Controlled Trial.

In vitro and animal studies have demonstrated that topical application and oral consumption of pomegranate reduces UVB-induced skin damage. We therefore investigated if oral pomegranate consumption will reduce photodamage from UVB irradiation and alter the composition of the skin microbiota in a randomized controlled, parallel, three-arm, open label study. Seventy-four female participants (30-45 years) with Fitzpatrick skin type II-IV were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 1000 mg of pomegranate extract (PomX), 8 oz of pomegranate juice (PomJ) or placebo for 12 weeks. Minimal erythema dose (MED) and melanin index were determined using a cutometer (mexameter probe). Skin microbiota was determined using 16S rRNA sequencing. The MED was significantly increased in the PomX and PomJ group compared to placebo. There was no significant difference on phylum, but on family and genus level bacterial composition of skin samples collected at baseline and after 12 week intervention showed significant differences between PomJ, PomX and placebo. Members of the Methylobacteriaceae family contain pigments absorbing UV irradiation and might contribute to UVB skin protection. However, we were not able to establish a direct correlation between increased MED and bacterial abundance. In summary daily oral pomegranate consumption may lead to enhanced protection from UV photodamage

Caspase polymorphisms and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

The aim of our study was to determine the impact of genetic polymorphisms in the caspase (CASP) genes on prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We genotyped 7 potentially functional polymorphisms in CASP3, CASP7, CASP8, CASP9, CASP10 genes in 362 HCC patients of receiving surgical resection of HCC tumor. The associations of genotype and haplotype with overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS) were analyzed by using the Cox proportional hazards model. We found that the CASP9 rs4645981 C allele was significantly associated with positive effect on DFS (P = 0.011 and 0.016 for CT+CC vs. TT in univariate and multivariate analysis, respectively), CT genotype was associated with a better OS of HCC than the TT genotype both in univariate and multivariate analysis (P = 0.048 and 0.041, respectively). Moreover, the CASP3 rs2705897 GT genotype showed marginally significant association with decreased OS and DFS, compared with the GG genotype. One haplotype TT/TG in CASP3 (constructed by rs12108497 T>C and rs2705897 T>G) was significantly associated with decreased OS and DFS, compared to the common haplotype TT/TT both in univariate analysis (P = 0.021 and 0.026, respectively) and multivariate analysis (P = 0.025 and 0.030, respectively). The haplotype GT/GT in CASP9 (constructed by rs4645978 A>G and rs4645981 C>T) was significantly associated with decreased DFS both in univariate and multivariate analysis (P = 0.012 and 0.010, respectively). In conclusion, the CASP9 rs4645981 polymorphism, CASP3 and CASP9 haplotypes may be useful prognosis markers for HCC patients with surgical resection of tumor

Transient Receptor Potential V Channels Are Essential for Glucose Sensing by Aldolase and AMPK

Fructose-1,6-bisphosphate (FBP) aldolase links sensing of declining glucose availability to AMPK activation via the lysosomal pathway. However, how aldolase transmits lack of occupancy by FBP to AMPK activation remains unclear. Here, we show that FBP-unoccupied aldolase interacts with and inhibits endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-localized transient receptor potential channel subfamily V, inhibiting calcium release in low glucose. The decrease of calcium at contact sites between ER and lysosome renders the inhibited TRPV accessible to bind the lysosomal v-ATPase that then recruits AXIN:LKB1 to activate AMPK independently of AMP. Genetic depletion of TRPVs blocks glucose starvation-induced AMPK activation in cells and liver of mice, and in nematodes, indicative of physical requirement of TRPVs. Pharmacological inhibition of TRPVs activates AMPK and elevates NAD(+) levels in aged muscles, rejuvenating the animals' running capacity. Our study elucidates that TRPVs relay the FBP-free status of aldolase to the reconfiguration of v-ATPase, leading to AMPK activation in low glucose

Biogeographic traits of dimethyl sulfide and dimethylsulfoniopropionate cycling in polar oceans

Background: Dimethyl sulfide (DMS) is the dominant volatile organic sulfur in global oceans. The predominant source of oceanic DMS is the cleavage of dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP), which can be produced by marine bacteria and phytoplankton. Polar oceans, which represent about one fifth of Earth’s surface, contribute significantly to the global oceanic DMS sea-air flux. However, a global overview of DMS and DMSP cycling in polar oceans is still lacking and the key genes and the microbial assemblages involved in DMSP/DMS transformation remain to be fully unveiled. Results: Here, we systematically investigated the biogeographic traits of 16 key microbial enzymes involved in DMS/DMSP cycling in 60 metagenomic samples from polar waters, together with 174 metagenome and 151 metatranscriptomes from non-polar Tara Ocean dataset. Our analyses suggest that intense DMS/DMSP cycling occurs in the polar oceans. DMSP demethylase (DmdA), DMSP lyases (DddD, DddP, and DddK), and trimethylamine monooxygenase (Tmm, which oxidizes DMS to dimethylsulfoxide) were the most prevalent bacterial genes involved in global DMS/DMSP cycling. Alphaproteobacteria (Pelagibacterales) and Gammaproteobacteria appear to play prominent roles in DMS/DMSP cycling in polar oceans. The phenomenon that multiple DMS/DMSP cycling genes co-occurred in the same bacterial genome was also observed in metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs) from polar oceans. The microbial assemblages from the polar oceans were significantly correlated with water depth rather than geographic distance, suggesting the differences of habitats between surface and deep waters rather than dispersal limitation are the key factors shaping microbial assemblages involved in DMS/DMSP cycling in polar oceans. Conclusions: Overall, this study provides a global overview of the biogeographic traits of known bacterial genes involved in DMS/DMSP cycling from the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, laying a solid foundation for further studies of DMS/DMSP cycling in polar ocean microbiome at the enzymatic, metabolic, and processual levels. 6bJ8nkA7sq-T64bgHw5GYLVideo Abstrac

Best Linear Unbiased Prediction of Genomic Breeding Values Using a Trait-Specific Marker-Derived Relationship Matrix

With the availability of high density whole-genome single nucleotide polymorphism chips, genomic selection has become a promising method to estimate genetic merit with potentially high accuracy for animal, plant and aquaculture species of economic importance. With markers covering the entire genome, genetic merit of genotyped individuals can be predicted directly within the framework of mixed model equations, by using a matrix of relationships among individuals that is derived from the markers. Here we extend that approach by deriving a marker-based relationship matrix specifically for the trait of interest