Rethinking the Masking Strategy for Pretraining Molecular Graphs from a Data-Centric View.

Node-level self-supervised learning has been widely applied for pretraining molecular graphs. Attribute Masking (AttrMask) is pioneering work in this field, and its improved methods focus on enhancing the capacity of the backbone models by incorporating additional modules. However, these methods overlook the imbalanced atom distribution due to employing only the random masking strategy to mask atoms for pretraining.

Prognostic factors in 448 newly diagnosed multiple myeloma receiving bortezomib-based induction: impact of ASCT, transplant refusal and high-risk MM.

In Hong Kong, newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) receives bortezomib-based triplet induction. Upfront autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) is offered to transplant eligible (TE) patients (NDMM ≤ 65 years of age), unless medically unfit (TE-unfit) or refused (TE-refused). Data was retrieved for 448 patients to assess outcomes.

Short-term postsynaptic plasticity facilitates predictive tracking in continuous attractors.

Introduction: The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) plays a critical role in synaptic transmission and is associated with various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Recently, a novel form of postsynaptic plasticity known as NMDAR-based short-term postsynaptic plasticity (STPP) has been identified. It has been suggested that long-lasting glutamate binding to NMDAR allows for the retention of input information in brain slices up to 500 ms, leading to response facilitation.

The ability of contemporary cardiologists to judge the ischemic impact of a coronary lesion visually.

Background: Landmark trials showed that invasive pressure measurement (Fractional Flow Reserve, FFR) was a better guide to coronary stenting than visual assessment. However, present-day interventionists have benefited from extensive research and personal experience of mapping anatomy to hemodynamics.

Aims: To determine if visual assessment of the angiogram performs as well as invasive measurement of coronary physiology.

A validation and modification of PLASMIC score by adjusting the criteria of mean corpuscular volume and international normalized ratio.

Background: The PLASMIC score was developed for distinguishing thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) from other types of thrombotic microangiopathy. However, two components of the PLASMIC score, mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and international normalized ratio (INR), showed non-significant differences between TTP and non-TTP patients in previous validations. Here, we validate the PLASMIC score and aim to modify it by adjusting the criteria of MCV and INR.

Competition on presynaptic resources enhances the discrimination of interfering memories.

Evidence suggests that hippocampal adult neurogenesis is critical for discriminating considerably interfering memories. During adult neurogenesis, synaptic competition modifies the weights of synaptic connections nonlocally across neurons, thus providing a different form of unsupervised learning from Hebb's local plasticity rule. However, how synaptic competition achieves separating similar memories largely remains unknown.

The impact of bortezomib-based induction in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma with chromosome 1q21 gain.

Introduction: Bortezomib has been reported to favourably impact the outcomes of (4;14) and del(17p) in multiple myeloma (MM), but its impact on gain 1q (+1q) is unknown.

Methods: To address this, 250 patients treated with bortezomib-based induction were analysed. All myeloma samples had fluorescence hybridization (FISH) performed on CD138-sorted bone marrow aspirate, and plasma cells were analysed using DNA probes specific for the following chromosomal aberrations: del(13q14), del(17p), (14;16), (4;14), and +1q.

Astrocyte GluN2C NMDA receptors control basal synaptic strengths of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons in the .

Experience-dependent plasticity is a key feature of brain synapses for which neuronal N-Methyl-D-Aspartate receptors (NMDARs) play a major role, from developmental circuit refinement to learning and memory. Astrocytes also express NMDARs, although their exact function has remained controversial. Here, we identify in mouse hippocampus, a circuit function for GluN2C NMDAR, a subtype highly expressed in astrocytes, in layer-specific tuning of synaptic strengths in CA1 pyramidal neurons.

Zebrafish capable of generating future state prediction error show improved active avoidance behavior in virtual reality.

Animals make decisions under the principle of reward value maximization and surprise minimization. It is still unclear how these principles are represented in the brain and are reflected in behavior. We addressed this question using a closed-loop virtual reality system to train adult zebrafish for active avoidance.

Effects of Shape and Size of Cobalt Phosphate Nanoparticles against .

T4 genotype are opportunistic pathogens that cause two types of infections, including vision-threatening keratitis (AK) and a fatal brain infection known as granulomatous amoebic encephalitis (GAE). Due to the existence of ineffective treatments against , it has become a potential threat to all contact lens users and immunocompromised patients. Metal nanoparticles have been proven to have various antimicrobial properties against bacteria, fungi, and parasites.

Orchestrated ensemble activities constitute a hippocampal memory engram.

The brain stores and recalls memories through a set of neurons, termed engram cells. However, it is unclear how these cells are organized to constitute a corresponding memory trace. We established a unique imaging system that combines Ca imaging and engram identification to extract the characteristics of engram activity by visualizing and discriminating between engram and non-engram cells.

Discrete-Attractor-like Tracking in Continuous Attractor Neural Networks.

Continuous attractor neural networks generate a set of smoothly connected attractor states. In memory systems of the brain, these attractor states may represent continuous pieces of information such as spatial locations and head directions of animals. However, during the replay of previous experiences, hippocampal neurons show a discontinuous sequence in which discrete transitions of the neural state are phase locked with the slow-gamma (∼30-50  Hz) oscillation.

Hippocampal Neurogenesis Reduces the Dimensionality of Sparsely Coded Representations to Enhance Memory Encoding.

Adult neurogenesis in the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG) of mammals is known to contribute to memory encoding in many tasks. The DG also exhibits exceptionally sparse activity compared to other systems, however, whether sparseness and neurogenesis interact during memory encoding remains elusive. We implement a novel learning rule consistent with experimental findings of competition among adult-born neurons in a supervised multilayer feedforward network trained to discriminate between contexts.

Transient and Persistent UP States during Slow-wave Oscillation and their Implications for Cell-Assembly Dynamics.

The membrane potentials of cortical neurons in vivo exhibit spontaneous fluctuations between a depolarized UP state and a resting DOWN state during the slow-wave sleeps or in the resting states. This oscillatory activity is believed to engage in memory consolidation although the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Recently, it has been shown that UP-DOWN state transitions exhibit significantly different temporal profiles in different cortical regions, presumably reflecting differences in the underlying network structure.

Impact of conflict on medical education: a cross-sectional survey of students and institutions in Iraq.

Objective: This study surveyed all Iraqi medical schools and a cross-section of Iraqi medical students regarding their institutional and student experiences of medical education amidst ongoing conflict. The objective was to better understand the current resources and challenges facing medical schools, and the impacts of conflict on the training landscape and student experience, to provide evidence for further research and policy development.

Setting: Deans of all Iraqi medical schools registered in the World Directory of Medical Schools were invited to participate in a survey electronically.

Vincristine could partly suppress stromal support to T-ALL blasts during pegylated arginase I treatment.

Background: Relapsed T-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) has been an incurable disease. Recent reports showed that an L-arginine depleting enzyme, pegylated arginase (BCT-100) may be effective against T-ALL cells. On the other hand, studies including ours had shown the symbiosis of ALL blasts and human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs) in bone marrow microenvironment during L-asparaginase treatment.

Evaluating the efficiency of coagulation in the removal of dissolved organic carbon from reservoir water using fluorescence and ultraviolet photometry.

The present study used ultraviolet absorption (UVa) and the florescence intensity (FI) to evaluate the coagulation efficiency for removing dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the raw water from Min-Ter, Li-Yu-Ten and Yun-Ho-Shen reservoirs in Taiwan. The results indicated that the ratio of DOC removal rate and FI removal rate was maintained at about 1 at various coagulant dosages. However, the ratio of DOC removal rate and UVa removal rate decreased as the coagulant dosage increased.

Lead poisoning after ingestion of home-made Chinese medicines.

A young woman presented with non-specific generalized musculoskeletal pain. Investigations revealed anaemia, raised reticulocyte count, basophilic stippling and erythroid hyperplasia of the bone marrow. Further history showed that she had been taking home-made Chinese medicines for acne for two months and the blood lead level confirmed the diagnosis of lead poisoning.

Effect of phosphate on removal of humic substances by aluminum sulfate coagulant.

The presence of humic acid may change the way phosphate is absorbed or stabilized by soil and how it influences the growth of plants. The binding of phosphate with the humic substance requires bridging between phosphate ions and humic acid by metal ions, such as aluminum or iron ions. The bridging reaction can take place in peat and allophane soil under acidic conditions, altering the effectiveness of the phosphate in soil.

A study of coagulation mechanisms of polyferric sulfate reacting with humic acid using a fluorescence-quenching method.

A fluorescence-quenching method is developed to assess the effect of pH on the coagulation mechanism of humic acids (HA) reacting with metal ions. A polyferric sulfate (PFS) synthesized in our laboratory is adopted as the coagulant to simplify the hydrolysis process and increase the experimental precision. The following results are discovered.

On-line Supervised Adaptive Training Using Radial Basis Function Networks.

A new recursive supervised training algorithm is derived for the radial basis neural network architecture. The new algorithm combines the procedures of on-line candidate regressor selection with the conventional Givens QR based recursive parameter estimator to provide efficient adaptive supervised network training. A new concise on-line correlation based performance monitoring scheme is also introduced as an auxiliary device to detect structural changes in temporal data processing applications.