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"Chen, Ping"
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Viral Metagenomics Revealed Sendai Virus and Coronavirus Infection of Malayan Pangolins (Manis javanica)
Pangolins are endangered animals in urgent need of protection. Identifying and cataloguing the viruses carried by pangolins is a logical approach to evaluate the range of potential pathogens and help with conservation. This study provides insight into viral communities of Malayan Pangolins (Manis javanica) as well as the molecular epidemiology of dominant pathogenic viruses between Malayan Pangolin and other hosts. A total of 62,508 de novo assembled contigs were constructed, and a BLAST search revealed 3600 ones (≥300 nt) were related to viral sequences, of which 68 contigs had a high level of sequence similarity to known viruses, while dominant viruses were the Sendai virus and Coronavirus. This is the first report on the viral diversity of pangolins, expanding our understanding of the virome in endangered species, and providing insight into the overall diversity of viruses that may be capable of directly or indirectly crossing over into other mammals.
Journal Article
Mid-level visual features underlie the high-level categorical organization of the ventral stream
Human object-selective cortex shows a large-scale organization characterized by the high-level properties of both animacy and object size. To what extent are these neural responses explained by primitive perceptual features that distinguish animals from objects and big objects from small objects? To address this question, we used a texture synthesis algorithm to create a class of stimuli—texforms—which preserve some mid-level texture and form information from objects while rendering them unrecognizable. We found that unrecognizable texforms were sufficient to elicit the large-scale organizations of object-selective cortex along the entire ventral pathway. Further, the structure in the neural patterns elicited by texforms was well predicted by curvature features and by intermediate layers of a deep convolutional neural network, supporting the mid-level nature of the representations. These results provide clear evidence that a substantial portion of ventral stream organization can be accounted for by coarse texture and form information without requiring explicit recognition of intact objects.
Journal Article
Dietary Fiber and Metabolic Syndrome: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Related Mechanisms
(1) Background: Dietary fiber intake may provide beneficial effects on the components of metabolic syndrome (MetS); however, observational studies reported inconsistent results for the relationship between dietary fiber intake and MetS risk. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantify previous observational studies and a narrative review to summarize mechanisms involved in the potential relationship. (2) Methods: The literature was searched on PubMed and Web of Science until 28 November 2017. A random-effects model was used to calculate the summary risk estimates. Eleven cross-sectional studies and three cohort studies were included in the meta-analysis. Results from the original studies were reported as odds ratios (ORs) or relative ratios (RRs) of the MetS associated with different levels of dietary fiber intake, and the ORs/RRs comparing the highest with lowest categories of the intake were pooled. (3) Results: For the cross-sectional studies, the pooled OR was 0.70 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.61–0.82) with evidence of high heterogeneity (I2 = 74.4%, p < 0.001) and publication bias (p for Egger’s test < 0.001). After removing four studies, results remained significant (OR = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.58–0.78) and the heterogeneity was largely reduced (I2 = 32.4%, p = 0.181). For the cohort studies, the pooled RR was 0.86 (95% CI: 0.70–1.06). (4) Conclusion: Although the meta-analysis suggests an inverse association between dietary fiber intake and risk of MetS, and the association was supported by a wide range of mechanism studies, the findings are limited by insufficient cohort data. More prospective studies are needed to further verify the association between dietary fiber intake and the risk of MetS.
Journal Article
Translation and cross-cultural communication studies in the Asia Pacific
Translation and interpreting (T/I) and cross-cultural communication activities in the Asia Pacific are unique in that they involve vastly different languages and cultures. Such differences pose challenges for T/I practitioners and researchers as well as scholars of cross-cultural studies. In this book, Leong Ko and Ping Chen provide a comprehensive and in-depth account of various issues encountered in translation and interpreting activities and cross-cultural communication in the Asia Pacific. 0The book covers six areas including translation research from the historical perspective and different issues in translation studies; research on literary translation; studies on translation for special purposes; research on interpreting; translation and interpreting training; and research on issues in cross-cultural communication.
Book
Automated bone mineral density prediction and fracture risk assessment using plain radiographs via deep learning
Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is underutilized to measure bone mineral density (BMD) and evaluate fracture risk. We present an automated tool to identify fractures, predict BMD, and evaluate fracture risk using plain radiographs. The tool performance is evaluated on 5164 and 18175 patients with pelvis/lumbar spine radiographs and Hologic DXA. The model is well calibrated with minimal bias in the hip (slope = 0.982, calibration-in-the-large = −0.003) and the lumbar spine BMD (slope = 0.978, calibration-in-the-large = 0.003). The area under the precision-recall curve and accuracy are 0.89 and 91.7% for hip osteoporosis, 0.89 and 86.2% for spine osteoporosis, 0.83 and 95.0% for high 10-year major fracture risk, and 0.96 and 90.0% for high hip fracture risk. The tool classifies 5206 (84.8%) patients with 95% positive or negative predictive value for osteoporosis, compared to 3008 DXA conducted at the same study period. This automated tool may help identify high-risk patients for osteoporosis.
Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and the Fracture Risk Assessment Tool are recommended tools for osteoporotic fracture risk evaluation, but are underutilized. Here, the authors present an opportunistic tool to identify fractures, predict bone mineral density and evaluate fracture risk using plain pelvis and lumbar spine radiographs.
Journal Article
Macrophage functional diversity in NAFLD — more than inflammation
Macrophages have diverse phenotypes and functions due to differences in their origin, location and pathophysiological context. Although their main role in the liver has been described as immunoregulatory and detoxifying, changes in macrophage phenotypes, diversity, dynamics and function have been reported during obesity-related complications such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). NAFLD encompasses multiple disease states from hepatic steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocarcinoma. Obesity and insulin resistance are prominent risk factors for NASH, a disease with a high worldwide prevalence and no approved treatment. In this Review, we discuss the turnover and function of liver-resident macrophages (Kupffer cells) and monocyte-derived hepatic macrophages. We examine these populations in both steady state and during NAFLD, with an emphasis on NASH. The explosion in high-throughput gene expression analysis using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) within the last 5 years has revolutionized the study of macrophage heterogeneity, substantially increasing our understanding of the composition and diversity of tissue macrophages, including in the liver. Here, we highlight scRNA-seq findings from the last 5 years on the diversity of liver macrophages in homeostasis and metabolic disease, and reveal hepatic macrophage function beyond their classically described inflammatory role in the progression of NAFLD and NASH pathogenesis.Macrophages in the liver can undergo phenotypic changes during metabolic diseases such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This Review discusses our current understanding of the changes in the proportions and functions of liver macrophage populations in health and NAFLD.
Journal Article
Role of genetics in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a large cohort study in Chinese mainland population
BackgroundA large number of new causative and risk genes for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have been identified mostly in patients of European ancestry. In contrast, we know relatively little regarding the genetics of ALS in other ethnic populations. This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the genetics of ALS in an unprecedented large cohort of Chinese mainland population and correlate with the clinical features of rare variants carriers.MethodsA total of 1587 patients, including 64 familial ALS (FALS) and 1523 sporadic ALS (SALS), and 1866 in-house controls were analysed by whole-exome sequencing and/or testing for G4C2 repeats in C9orf72. Forty-one ALS-associated genes were analysed.Findings155 patients, including 26 (40.6%) FALS and 129 (8.5%) SALS, carrying rare pathogenic/likely pathogenic (P/LP) variants of ALS causative genes were identified. SOD1 was the most common mutated gene, followed by C9orf72, FUS, NEK1, TARDBP and TBK1. By burden analysis, rare variants in SOD1, FUS and TARDBP contributed to the collective risk for ALS (p<2.5e-6) at the gene level, but at the allelic level TARDBP p.Gly294Val and FUS p.Arg521Cys and p.Arg521His were the most important single variants causing ALS. Clinically, P/LP variants in TARDBP and C9orf72 were associated with poor prognosis, in FUS linked with younger age of onset, and C9orf72 repeats tended to affect cognition.ConclusionsOur data provide essential information for understanding the genetic and clinical features of ALS in China and for optimal design of genetic testing and evaluation of disease prognosis.
Journal Article