User-based collaborative filtering is an important technique used in collaborative filtering recommender systems to recommend items based on the opinions of like-minded nearby users, where similarity ...computation is the critical component. Traditional similarity measures, such as Pearson's correlation coefficient and cosine Similarity, mainly focus on the directions of co-related rating vectors and have inherent limitations for recommendations. In addition, CF-based recommendation systems always suffer from the cold-start problem, where users do not have enough co-related ratings for prediction. To address these problems, we propose a novel similarity measure inspired by a physical resonance phenomenon, named resonance similarity (RES). We fully consider different personalized situations in RES by mathematically modeling the consistency of users' rating behaviors, the distances between the users' opinions, and the Jaccard factor with both the co-related and non-related ratings. RES is a cumulative sum of the arithmetic product of these three parts and is optimized using learning parameters from data sets. Results evaluated on six real data sets show that RES is robust against the observed problems and has superior predictive accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art similarity measures on full users', grouped users', and cold-start users' evaluations.
To estimate long-term efficacy and safety for maxillary trigeminal neuralgia (TN) using radiofrequency thermocoagulation (RFT) targeted on Gasserian ganglion, and to identify the factors which may ...influence outcomes after procedure.
From 2006 to 2019, 1070 patients underwent RFT for the treatment of medically refractory maxillary TN was included. All patients were followed up for at least 2 years. Outcomes and complications were recorded and analysed. Logistic regression analysis was employed to identify risk factors of long-term pain recurrence. Prognostic value was calculated from receiver-operating characteristic curve (ROC).
Longitudinal analysis was taken place for 97 non-responders (9.1%) with ineffective pain relief, 253 responders (23.6%) with pain recurrence and 720 responders (67.3%) without pain recurrence. The median pain-free survival (PFS) was 112.0 months (95% CI: 107.5, 116.5). The pain-free rates were 89.9% (95% CI: 88.0-91.8%) at 1 year, 83.8% (95% CI: 81.5-86.1%) at 2 years, 75.4% (95% CI: 72.7-78.1%) at 5 years and 70.2% (95% CI: 67.4-73.0%) at 10 years. Atypical facial pain (HR = 5.373, 95% CI: 2.623-11.004, p < .001), previous facial numbness (HR = 5.224, 95% CI: 3.107-8.784, p < .001) and poor initial response to medication (HR = 3.185, 95% CI: 2.087-4.860, p < .001) were independently associated with long-term pain recurrence. Patients with prognostic index (PI) > 0.25 were identified as high-risk for recurrent TN (HR = 5.575, 95% CI: 3.991-7.788, p < .001). New and worsen facial hypoesthesia was recorded in 77.9% of patients corresponding with BNI score II-IV, and 18.7% reported improved sensation. Severe complication incidence including troublesome dysesthaesia, keratitis and masseter weakness was higher in 80 °C group.
Favourable outcomes were achieved in terms of long-term pain relief and complications rate after RFT for maxillary TN. Patients with typical facial pain, normal facial sensation, and good initial response to medications may have favourable long-term outcomes.
Key messages
This is a retrospective analysis of radiofrequency thermocoagulation (RFT) targeted on Gasserian ganglion for the treatment of maxillary trigeminal neuralgia (TN) during long-term follow-up. Recurrence-free survival among a large sample was assessed and risk factors associated with long-term pain recurrence was identified. It has been verified that inadvertent damage of ophthalmic and mandibular division causes ophthalmic and masticatory complications. Therefore, a more precise needle tip position and thermocoagulation using a relatively low temperature was recommended.
To compare therapeutic efficacy and safety of ultrasound (US)-guided selective nerve root block (SNRB) and fluoroscopy (FL)-guided transforaminal epidural steroid injection (TFESI) for cervical spine ...radiculopathy (CSR).
156 patients with CSR randomly received US-guided SNRB verified by FL or FL-guided TFESI. We hypothesised that the accuracy rate of contrast dispersion into epidural or intervertebral foraminal space in the US group was not inferior to that in the FL group with a margin of clinical unimportance of −15%. Pain intensity assessed by Numeric Rating Scales (NRS) and functional disability estimated by neck disability index (NDI) were compared before treatment, at 1, 3 and 6 months after the intervention. Puncture time and complication frequencies were also reported.
88.7% and 90.3% accuracy ratings were respectively achieved in the US and FL groups with a treatment difference of −1.6% (95%CI: −9.7%, 6.6%) revealing that the lower limit was above the non-inferiority margin. Both NRS and NDI scores illustrated improvements at 1, 3 and 6 months after intervention with no statistically significant differences between the two groups (all p > .05). Additionally, shorter administration duration was observed in the US group (p < .001). No severe complications were observed in both group.
Compared with the FL group, the US group provided a non-inferior accuracy rate of epidural/foraminal contrast pattern. For the treatment of CSR, the US technique provided similar pain relief and functional improvements while facilitating distinguishing critical vessels adjacent to the foramen and requiring a shorter procedure duration without exposure to radiation. Therefore, it was an attractive alternative to the conventional FL method.
Key messages
We conducted a prospective, open-label, randomised and non-inferiority clinical trial to estimate a hypothesis that the precisely accurate delivery through ultrasound (US)-guided cervical selective nerve root block (SNRB) was non-inferior to that using FL-guided transforaminal epidural steroid injection. Additionally, US-guided SNRB was as effective as FL-guided TFESI in the treatment effect on pain relief and function improvements. Notably, the US technique might be an alternative to the conventional FL method due to the ability to prevent inadvertent vascular puncture (VP) and intravascular injection (IVI) with a shorter administration time and absence of radiation exposure.
Trigeminal neuralgia is a debilitating condition that can significantly impair the quality of life of affected individuals. Percutaneous balloon compression (PBC) has been established as an effective ...treatment for this condition. However, the use of general anesthesia during the procedure poses challenges to achieving the desired degree of nerve damage without causing excessive numbness. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of performing PBC under conscious sedation of local anesthesia.
We improved the surgical procedure for PBC by administering intraganglionic lidocaine 0.2% with fine needle aspiration to achieve conscious sedation. This allowed the operator to determine the degree of nerve damage in real time through the tactile test. We conducted a clinical observation of 87 patients who underwent PBC under conscious sedation of local anesthesia. We evaluated the intraoperative blood pressure and heart rate changes, postoperative facial pain relief, and occurrence of complications such as severe facial numbness, irreversible keratitis, vision loss, and masticatory muscle weakness.
All 87 patients achieved immediate relief of facial pain after undergoing PBC under conscious sedation of local anesthesia. The intraoperative blood pressure and heart rate changes were <20% of the baseline value. No patient experienced severe facial numbness or developed irreversible keratitis, vision loss, or masticatory muscle weakness.
Our findings suggest that PBC under wide-awake local anesthesia is a safe and effective treatment for trigeminal neuralgia. The use of conscious sedation of local anesthesia during the procedure allows the operator to achieve the desired degree of nerve damage without causing excessive numbness. This can lead to long-term pain relief and improved quality of life for patients with trigeminal neuralgia.
The dried rhizome of Cimicifuga heracleifolia Kom. (C. heracleifolia) is a popular traditional Chinese medicine, which has been extensively used in Asian countries for its anti-inflammatory, ...antipyretic and analgesic activities. However, further utilization and application of C. heracleifolia have been hampered due to a lack of full understanding of its active ingredients.
The present study aims for clarification of the systematical chemical profile of C. heracleifolia and the immunomodulatory effect of its main bioavailable component.
Comprehensive chemical profile of C. heracleifolia was systematically analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography hyphenated with quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF/MS). Xenobiotics after oral administration of C. heracleifolia extracts were investigated to hunt for bioavailable components. The immunomodulatory activity evaluation of cimigenoside was achieved on poly(I:C)-induced airway inflammation mouse and BEAS-2B cell models from aspects of neutrophil infiltration, lung inflammation by using microscope analysis, quantification of production and expression of inflammatory cytokine and chemokines by using ELISA and quantitative PCR.
By UPLC-Q-TOF/MS analysis, 110 compounds (including 81 triterpenoids, 21 cinnamic acid derivatives, and 8 other structure types) were identified or tentatively characterized in ethanolic extract of C. heracleifolia. Based on the data of chemical profile, xenobiotics of C. heracleifolia were subsequently analyzed, and triterpene glycosides were detected as the major bioavailable ingredients. Oral administration of cimigenoside, a representative triterpene glycoside, could prevent neutrophils infiltration in the lung due to suppression of the production of CXCL2 and CXCL10, and the expression of P-selectin, VCAM1 in poly(I:C)-induced airway inflammation model mice. Moreover, cimigenoside also inhibited the productions of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines from human airway epithelial cell line (BEAS-2B cells) induced by poly(I:C).
Triterpene glycosides were the main components of C. heracleifolia extract, and cimigenoside was considered as the effective component with immunomodulatory effect on the pulmonary immune system by oral administration.
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•Chemical profile of Cimicifuga heracleifolia Kom. were systematically characterized.•Triterpene glycosides of Cimicifuga heracleifolia Kom. were the major bioavailable components.•Cimigenoside showed a strong anti-inflammatory activity on poly(I:C)-induced airway inflammation mice model.•Cimigenoside could reduce the release of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines in poly(I:C)-stimulated BEAS-2B cells.
Fruit aroma is an important quality with respect to consumer preference, but the most important aroma compounds and their genetic regulatory mechanisms remain elusive.
In this study, we qualitatively ...analysed volatile compounds in the pulp and skin of five table grape cultivars with three aroma types (muscat, strawberry, and neutral) using solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. We identified 215 aroma compounds, including 88 esters, 64 terpenes, and 29 alcohols, and found significant differences in the number of compounds between the pulp and skin, especially for terpenes. Skin transcriptome data for the five grape cultivars were generated and subjected to aroma compound-gene correlation analysis. The combined transcriptomic analysis and terpene profiling data revealed 20 candidate genes, which were assessed in terms of their involvement in aroma biosynthetic regulation, including 1 VvCYP (VIT_08s0007g07730), 2 VvCCR (VIT_13s0067g00620, VIT_13s0047g00940), 3 VvADH (VIT_00s0615g00010, VIT_00s0615g00030, VIT_ 00s0615g00020), and 1 VvSDR (VIT_08s0040g01200) in the phenylpropanoids synthesis pathway, and 1 VvDXS (VIT_05s0020g02130) and 6 VvTPS (VIT_13s0067g00370, Vitis_vinifera_newGene_3216, VIT_13s0067g00380, VIT_13s0084g00010, VIT_00s0271g00010, and VIT_13s0067g00050) in the methylerythritol phosphate pathway (involved in the production and accumulation of aromatic compounds). Additionally, 2 VvMYB (VIT_17s0000g07950, VIT_03s0063g02620) and 1 VvGATA (VIT_15s0024g00980) transcription factor played important regulatory roles in the accumulation of key biosynthetic precursors of these compounds in grapes. Our results indicated that downstream genes, specifically 1 VvBGLU (VIT_03s0063g02490) and 2 VvUGT (VIT_17s0000g07070, VIT_17s0000g07060) are involved in regulating the formation and volatilization of bound compounds in grapes.
The results of this study shed light on the volatile compounds and "anchor points" of synthetic pathways in the pulp and skin of muscat and strawberry grapes, and provide new insight into the regulation of different aromas in grapes.
The BRASSINAZOLE-RESISTANT (BZR) family of transcription factors (TFs) are positive regulators in the biosynthesis of brassinosteroids. The latter is a class of steroid hormones that affect a variety ...of developmental and physiological processes in plants. BZR TFs play essential roles in the regulation of plant growth and development, including multiple stress-resistance functions. However, the evolutionary history and individual expression patterns of the legume
genes has not been determined. In this study, we performed a genome-wide investigation of the
gene family in seven legume species. In total, 52
genes were identified and characterized. By analyzing their phylogeny, we divided these
genes into five groups by comparison with orthologs/paralogs in
. The intron/exon structural patterns and conserved protein motifs of each gene were analyzed and showed high group-specificities. Legume
genes were unevenly distributed among their corresponding genomes. Genome and gene sequence comparisons revealed that gene expansion of the BZR TF family in legumes mainly resulted from segmental duplications and that this family has undergone purifying selection. Synteny analysis showed that
genes tended to localize within syntenic blocks conserved across legume genomes. The expression patterns of
genes among various legume vegetative tissues and in response to different abiotic stresses were analyzed using a combination of public transcriptome data and quantitative PCR. The patterns indicated that many
genes regulate legume organ development and differentiation, and significantly respond to drought and salt stresses. This study may provide valuable information for understanding the evolution of
gene structure and expression, and lays a foundation for future functional analysis of the legume
genes by species and by gene.
Clinical studies and basic science experiments have widely demonstrated the antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of the herbal formula Xiao-Yao-San (XYS). However, the system mechanism of these ...effects has not been fully characterized. The present study conducted a comprehensive network pharmacological analysis of XYS and sorted all pharmacologically active components (149) through the TCMSP webserver. Then, all potential molecular targets (449) were predicted, of which there were 99 genes clearly related to depression. To further investigate the mechanism of antidepressant effects of XYS, a compound-depression targets (C-DTs) network was constructed, and Gene Ontology (GO) functional and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses were performed for the 99 targets. Enrichment results revealed that XYS could regulate multiple aspects of depression through these targets, related to metabolism, neuroendocrine function, and neuroimmunity. Prediction and analysis of protein-protein interactions resulted in selection of three hub genes (AKT1, TP53, and VEGFA). In addition, a total of seven ingredients from XYS could act on these hub genes and they were identified through ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q/TOF-MS), including paeoniflorin, quercetin, luteolin, acacetin, aloe-emodin, Glyasperin C, kaempferol. Hereafter, we investigated the effects of paeoniflorin and its predicted target, the results suggest that it can reverse the neurotoxicity produced by CORT and could be a neuroprotective effect by promoting the phosphorylation of Akt. Overall, our research revealed the complicated antidepressant mechanism of XYS, and also provided a rational strategy for revealing the complex composition and function of Chinese herbal formula.
Knowledge Tracing (KT) refers to the problem of predicting future learner performance given their historical interactions with e-learning platforms. Recent years, Deep Learning-based Knowledge ...Tracing (DLKT) methods show superior performance than traditional methods due to their strong representational ability. However, researchers usually focus on innovations in model structure, while ignoring the importance of Representation Learning (RL) for DLKT. Investigating previous studies, it is found that the mining and integration of learning-related factors can effectively improve the performance of DLKT models. This paper focuses on providing a model embedding interface for DLKT by considering multiple types of learning-related factors. We first explore and analyze four types of learning-related factors: exercise and skill, the attributes of exercise, learners’ historical performance, and learners’ forgetting behavior in the learning process. We then propose an Extensible Representation Learning (ERL) approach for DLKT to extract and integrate the representations of these four types of factors by setting five components: base embedding, auxiliary embedding, performance embedding, forgetting embedding, and embedding integration. Finally, we apply ERL into two mainstream DLKT models and comprehensively evaluate the proposed approach on several real-world benchmark datasets. Results show that ERL can significantly improve the performances of these two network on predicting future learner responses.
Plant lateral organs are often elaborated through repetitive formation of developmental units, which progress robustly in predetermined patterns along their axes. Leaflets in compound leaves provide ...an example of such units that are generated sequentially along the longitudinal axis, in species-specific patterns. In this context, we explored the molecular mechanisms underlying an acropetal mode of leaflet initiation in chickpea pinnate compound leaf patterning. By analyzing naturally occurring mutants multi-pinnate leaf1 (mpl1) that develop higher-ordered pinnate leaves with more than forty leaflets, we show that MPL1 encoding a C2H2-zinc finger protein sculpts a morphogenetic gradient along the proximodistal axis of the early leaf primordium, thereby conferring the acropetal leaflet formation. This is achieved by defining the spatiotemporal expression pattern of CaLEAFY, a key regulator of leaflet initiation, and also perhaps by modulating the auxin signaling pathway. Our work provides novel molecular insights into the sequential progression of leaflet formation.
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