66 research outputs found
ST-Producing E. coli Oppose Carcinogen-Induced Colorectal Tumorigenesis in Mice
No full textThere is a geographic inequality in the incidence of colorectal cancer, lowest in developing countries, and greatest in developed countries. This disparity suggests an environmental contribution to cancer resistance in endemic populations. Enterotoxigenic bacteria associated with diarrheal disease are prevalent in developing countries, including enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) producing heat-stable enterotoxins (STs). STs are peptides that are structurally homologous to paracrine hormones that regulate the intestinal guanylyl cyclase C (GUCY2C) receptor. Beyond secretion, GUCY2C is a tumor suppressor universally silenced by loss of expression of its paracrine hormone during carcinogenesis. Thus, the geographic imbalance in colorectal cancer, in part, may reflect chronic exposure to ST-producing organisms that restore GUCY2C signaling silenced by hormone loss during transformation. Here, mice colonized for 18 weeks with control E. coli or those engineered to secrete ST exhibited normal growth, with comparable weight gain and normal stool water content, without evidence of secretory diarrhea. Enterotoxin-producing, but not control, E. coli, generated ST that activated colonic GUCY2C signaling, cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) production, and cGMP-dependent protein phosphorylation in colonized mice. Moreover, mice colonized with ST-producing E. coli exhibited a 50% reduction in carcinogen-induced colorectal tumor burden. Thus, chronic colonization with ETEC producing ST could contribute to endemic cancer resistance in developing countries, reinforcing a novel paradigm of colorectal cancer chemoprevention with oral GUCY2C-targeted agents
Biodiversity Research for Sustainable Development: Can It Be Achieved?
No full textBiodiversity is said to be the "heart of sustainable agricultural systems". Biodiversity research is envisioned to provide a better understanding of development issues so that better policy responses, management practices and actions will ultimately redound to a better quality of life for all, especially the poor. It is in this light that the Philippines-Netherlands Biodiversity Research Programme for Development is revisited and analyzed in this paper. This and other similar projects provide lessons for capacity development at the community, national, regional and international levels. To proceed with its analysis, the paper fleshes out the framework of sustainable development, situating the role of biodiversity in determining the pathway of development. As shown, biodiversity, as an element of the natural resource base, and in concert with technology and sociocultural factors, will continue to be relevant in a rapidly changing and increasingly globalized world. It also presents the sustainable livelihood framework to illustrate that biodiversity alone, being only one component of natural capital, cannot alleviate poverty if nothing is done with the other capital assets. One important lesson gleaned from the analysis of biodiversity research is that not all biodiversity is good. The key is to better understand the interactions between various levels and how these can be harnessed into positive interactions to produce a productive, stable and sustainable resource base. Another emerging lesson is that biodiversity can be conserved in agroecosystems if the poor resource users can be enabled to use it to improve their assets in the context of the sustainable livelihood framework. The effective management and conservation of agricultural biodiversity can be achieved through product value addition and link to market, germplasm enhancement, and participatory plant breeding, among others.biodiversity, sustainable development, agroecosystems
Holography for people with no time
No full textWe study the gravitational description of extremal supersymmetric black
holes. We point out that the near horizon geometry can be used to
compute interesting observables, such as correlation functions of operators. In
this limit, the Hamiltonian is zero and correlation functions are time
independent. We discuss some possible implications for the gravity description
of black hole microstates. We also compare with numerical results in a
supersymmetric version of SYK. These results can also be interpreted as
providing a construction of wormholes joining two extremal black holes. This is
the short version of a longer and more technical companion paper
arXiv:2207.00408.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures; v2: slightly expanded discussion, v3: minor
improvement
Reconstruction of compressed spectral imaging based on global structure and spectral correlation
No full textIn this paper, a convolutional sparse coding method based on global structure
characteristics and spectral correlation is proposed for the reconstruction of
compressive spectral images. The spectral data is regarded as the convolution
sum of the convolution kernel and the corresponding coefficients, using the
convolution kernel operates the global image information, preserving the
structure information of the spectral image in the spatial dimension. To take
full exploration of the constraints between spectra, the coefficients
corresponding to the convolution kernel are constrained by the L_(2,1)norm to
improve spectral accuracy. And, to solve the problem that convolutional sparse
coding is insensitive to low frequency, the global total-variation (TV)
constraint is added to estimate the low-frequency components. It not only
ensures the effective estimation of the low-frequency but also transforms the
convolutional sparse coding into a de-noising process, which makes the
reconstructing process simpler. Simulations show that compared with the current
mainstream optimization methods, the proposed method can improve the
reconstruction quality by up to 4 dB in PSNR and 10% in SSIM, and has a great
improvement in the details of the reconstructed image
Looking at supersymmetric black holes for a very long time
No full textWe study correlation functions for extremal supersymmetric black holes. It is necessary to take into account the strongly coupled nature of the boundary supergraviton mode. We consider the case with supercharges which is the minimal amount of supersymmetry needed to give a large ground state degeneracy, separated from the continuum. Using the exact solution for this theory we derive formulas for the two point function and we also give integral expressions for any -point correlator. These correlators are time independent at large times and approach constant values that depend on the masses and couplings of the bulk theory. We also explain that in the non-supersymmetric case, the correlators develop a universal time dependence at long times. This paper is the longer companion paper of arXiv:2207.00407.61 pages, 19 figures; v2: fixed typos, expanded comments on random matrix behavior of projected operators, added Appendix K, v3: fixed minus signs, v4: minor improvements, v5: correction to Fig 1
DesignProbe: A Graphic Design Benchmark for Multimodal Large Language Models
No full textA well-executed graphic design typically achieves harmony in two levels, from
the fine-grained design elements (color, font and layout) to the overall
design. This complexity makes the comprehension of graphic design challenging,
for it needs the capability to both recognize the design elements and
understand the design. With the rapid development of Multimodal Large Language
Models (MLLMs), we establish the DesignProbe, a benchmark to investigate the
capability of MLLMs in design. Our benchmark includes eight tasks in total,
across both the fine-grained element level and the overall design level. At
design element level, we consider both the attribute recognition and semantic
understanding tasks. At overall design level, we include style and metaphor. 9
MLLMs are tested and we apply GPT-4 as evaluator. Besides, further experiments
indicates that refining prompts can enhance the performance of MLLMs. We first
rewrite the prompts by different LLMs and found increased performances appear
in those who self-refined by their own LLMs. We then add extra task knowledge
in two different ways (text descriptions and image examples), finding that
adding images boost much more performance over texts.Comment: work in progres
The novel TFEB agonist desloratadine ameliorates hepatic steatosis by activating the autophagy-lysosome pathway
No full textThe autophagy-lysosome pathway plays an essential role in promoting lipid catabolism and preventing hepatic steatosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Transcription factor EB (TFEB) enhances the autophagy-lysosome pathway by regulating the expression of genes related to autophagy and lysosome biogenesis. Therefore, targeting TFEB provides a novel strategy for the treatment of lipid metabolic diseases. In this study, the antiallergic drug desloratadine was screened and identified as a novel TFEB agonist. Desloratadine effectively induced translocation of TFEB to the nucleus and promoted autophagy and lysosome biogenesis. Desloratadine-induced TFEB activation was dependent on AMPK rather than mTORC1. Moreover, desloratadine treatment enhanced clearance of lipid droplets in cells induced by fatty acids oleate and palmitate. Furthermore, high-fat diet (HFD) induced obesity mouse model experiments indicated treatment with desloratadine markedly reduced the body weight of HFD-fed mice, as well as the levels of hepatic triglycerides and total cholesterol, serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase and glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase. Oil red O staining showed the liver fat was significantly reduced after desloratadine treatment, and H&E staining analysis demonstrated hepatocellular ballooning was improved. In addition, autophagy and lysosomal biogenesis was stimulated in the liver of desloratadine treated mice. Altogether, these findings demonstrate desloratadine ameliorates hepatic steatosis through activating the TFEB-mediated autophagy-lysosome pathway, thus desloratadine has an exciting potential to be used to treat fatty liver disease
Strong Homology Between Colonizing and Bloodstream Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter Spp.: Implications for Empiric Antibiotic Therapy in Hematological Patients
No full textJia Li,1,2 Wenjing Guo,1,2 Jieru Wang,1,2 Xiaomeng Feng,1,2 Qingsong Lin,1,2,* Yizhou Zheng,1,2 Fengkui Zhang,1,2 Yingchang Mi,1,2 Xiaofan Zhu,1,2 Erlie Jiang,1,2 Zhijian Xiao,1,2 Jianxiang Wang,1,2 Sizhou Feng1,2,* 1State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, National Clinical Research Center for Blood Diseases, Haihe Laboratory of Cell Ecosystem, Institute of Hematology & Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin, 300020, People’s Republic of China; 2Tianjin Institutes of Health Science, Tianjin, 301600, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Sizhou Feng, Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Center, State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, National Clinical Research Center for Blood Diseases, Haihe Laboratory of Cell Ecosystem, Institute of Hematology & Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, No. 288 Nanjing Road, Tianjin, 300020, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-022-23909162, Fax +022-23909047, Email [email protected]; [email protected]: This study aimed to assess the impact of colonization status on the outcomes of Acinetobacter spp. bloodstream infection (BSI) and investigate the homology and within-host evolution between colonizing and bloodstream carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter spp. (CRA) to inform antibiotic therapeutic decisions.Methods: We analyzed clinical outcomes of 46 hematological patients with Acinetobacter spp. BSI and performed whole-genome sequencing on the remaining CRA isolates.Results: Among the patients, 39.1% (n=18) had prior Acinetobacter spp. colonization. Colonized patients had higher rates of polymicrobial BSI (50.0% vs 21.4%, P=0.044) and CRA BSI (72.2% vs 17.9%, P< 0.001), resulting in elevated inflammatory markers and increased 30-day mortality. Each of the eight pairs of the remaining respiratory colonizing and bloodstream CRA strains belonged to the same genomospecies. Each pair exhibited definitive agreement in at least 21 of the 22 most representative antibiotic susceptibility tests. The minimum spanning tree based on multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and phylogenetic trees based on MLST and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) all indicated that each pair shared the same minimum branch. Very few non-synonymous SNPs in genic regions were identified during the transition from respiratory colonization to bloodstream infection, with minimal changes in virulence genes. Homology analysis suggested that CRA BSI originated from colonizing isolates in the respiratory tract.Conclusion: Strict infection control measures are needed to manage Acinetobacter spp. colonisation in hematological patients. Appropriate empirical therapy can be administered for suspected CRA BSI based on the antimicrobial minimum inhibitory concentration of CRA colonising the respiratory tract.Keywords: Acinetobacter, colonization, bloodstream infections, homology, therapy, carbapenem-resistan
MARS: Exploiting Multi-Level Parallelism for DNN Workloads on Adaptive Multi-Accelerator Systems
No full textAlong with the fast evolution of deep neural networks, the hardware system is
also developing rapidly. As a promising solution achieving high scalability and
low manufacturing cost, multi-accelerator systems widely exist in data centers,
cloud platforms, and SoCs. Thus, a challenging problem arises in
multi-accelerator systems: selecting a proper combination of accelerators from
available designs and searching for efficient DNN mapping strategies. To this
end, we propose MARS, a novel mapping framework that can perform
computation-aware accelerator selection, and apply communication-aware sharding
strategies to maximize parallelism. Experimental results show that MARS can
achieve 32.2% latency reduction on average for typical DNN workloads compared
to the baseline, and 59.4% latency reduction on heterogeneous models compared
to the corresponding state-of-the-art method.Comment: Accepted by 60th DA
A Survey for Graphic Design Intelligence
No full textGraphic design is an effective language for visual communication. Using
complex composition of visual elements (e.g., shape, color, font) guided by
design principles and aesthetics, design helps produce more visually-appealing
content. The creation of a harmonious design requires carefully selecting and
combining different visual elements, which can be challenging and
time-consuming. To expedite the design process, emerging AI techniques have
been proposed to automatize tedious tasks and facilitate human creativity.
However, most current works only focus on specific tasks targeting at different
scenarios without a high-level abstraction. This paper aims to provide a
systematic overview of graphic design intelligence and summarize literature in
the taxonomy of representation, understanding and generation. Specifically we
consider related works for individual visual elements as well as the overall
design composition. Furthermore, we highlight some of the potential directions
for future explorations.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
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