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الحصن المحاصر
في هذا الكتاب الحصن المحاصر للمؤلف تشيان جونغ شو يتحدث ويتناول المؤلف عن حصار المجتمع الصيني وبالأخص طبقة المثقفين في تلك الفترة داخل أنفسها قبل أن يكون حصارا بأسوار الاحتلال وكما تناول غلبة الصراع من النزاع الداخلي والتزاحم في جو من المكائد بدلا من التركيز في مواجهة العدو الياباني المشترك في هذا الوقت.
BOOK
Shape analysis of the human association pathways
Shape analysis has been widely used in digital image processing and computer vision, but they have not been utilized to compare the structural characteristics of the human association pathways. Here we used shape analysis to derive length, area, volume, and shape metrics from diffusion MRI tractography and utilized them to study the morphology of human association pathways. The reliability analysis showed that shape descriptors achieved moderate to good test-retest reliability. Further analysis on association pathways showed left dominance in the arcuate fasciculus, cingulum, uncinate fasciculus, frontal aslant tract, and right dominance in the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus and inferior longitudinal fasciculus. The superior longitudinal fasciculus has a mixed lateralization profile with different metrics showing either left or right dominance. The analysis of between-subject variations shows that the overall layout of the association pathways does not variate a lot across subjects, as shown by low between-subject variation in length, span, diameter, and radius. In contrast, the area of the pathway innervation region has a considerable between-subject variation. A follow-up analysis is warranted to thoroughly investigate the nature of population variations and their structure-function correlation.
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Journal Article
Population-based tract-to-region connectome of the human brain and its hierarchical topology
Connectome maps region-to-region connectivities but does not inform which white matter pathways form the connections. Here we constructed a population-based tract-to-region connectome to fill this information gap. The constructed connectome quantifies the population probability of a white matter tract innervating a cortical region. The results show that ~85% of the tract-to-region connectome entries are consistent across individuals, whereas the remaining (~15%) have substantial individual differences requiring individualized mapping. Further hierarchical clustering on cortical regions revealed dorsal, ventral, and limbic networks based on the tract-to-region connective patterns. The clustering results on white matter bundles revealed the categorization of fiber bundle systems in the association pathways. This tract-to-region connectome provides insights into the connective topology between cortical regions and white matter bundles. The derived hierarchical relation further offers a categorization of gray and white matter structures.
The brain connectome maps region-to-region connections but often ignores the role of the connecting pathways. Here, the authors mapped the tract-to-region relations to reveal the hierarchical relation of fiber bundles and dorsal, ventral, and limbic networks.
Journal Article
Characterization of tumoricidal activities mediated by a novel immune cell regimen composing interferon-producing killer dendritic cells and tumor-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes
Background
Although immune cell therapy has long been used for treating solid cancer, its efficacy remains limited. Interferon (IFN)-producing killer dendritic cells (IKDCs) exhibit cytotoxicity and present antigens to relevant cells; thus, they can selectively induce tumor-associated antigen (TAA)-specific CD8 T cells and may be useful in cancer treatment. Various protocols have been used to amplify human IKDCs from peripheral sources, but the complexity of the process has prevented their widespread clinical application. Additionally, the induction of TAA-specific CD8 T cells through the adoptive transfer of IKDCs to immunocompromised patients with cancer may be insufficient. Therefore, we developed a method for generating an immune cell-based regimen, Phyduxon-T, comprising a human IKDC counterpart (Phyduxon) and expanded TAA-specific CD8 T cells.
Methods
Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from ovarian cancer patients were cultured with human interleukin (hIL)-15, hIL-12, and hIL-18 to generate Phyduxon-T. Then, its phenotype, cytotoxicity, and antigen-presenting function were evaluated through flow cytometry using specific monoclonal antibodies.
Results
Phyduxon exhibited the characteristics of both natural killer and dendritic cells. This regimen also exhibited cytotoxicity against primary ovarian cancer cells and presented TAAs, thereby inducing TAA-specific CD8 T cells, as evidenced by the expression of 4-1BB and IFN-γ. Notably, the Phyduxon-T manufacturing protocol effectively expanded IFN-γ-producing 4-1BB
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TAA-specific CD8 T cells from peripheral sources; these cells exhibited cytotoxic activities against ovarian cancer cells.
Conclusions
Phyduxon-T, which is a combination of natural killer cells, dendritic cells, and TAA-specific CD8 T cells, may enhance the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.
Journal Article
Research Progress on the use of Plant Allelopathy in Agriculture and the Physiological and Ecological Mechanisms of Allelopathy
Allelopathy is a common biological phenomenon by which one organism produces biochemicals that influence the growth, survival, development, and reproduction of other organisms. These biochemicals are known as allelochemicals and have beneficial or detrimental effects on target organisms. Plant allelopathy is one of the modes of interaction between receptor and donor plants and may exert either positive effects (e.g., for agricultural management, such as weed control, crop protection, or crop re-establishment) or negative effects (e.g., autotoxicity, soil sickness, or biological invasion). To ensure sustainable agricultural development, it is important to exploit cultivation systems that take advantage of the stimulatory/inhibitory influence of allelopathic plants to regulate plant growth and development and to avoid allelopathic autotoxicity. Allelochemicals can potentially be used as growth regulators, herbicides, insecticides, and antimicrobial crop protection products. Here, we reviewed the plant allelopathy management practices applied in agriculture and the underlying allelopathic mechanisms described in the literature. The major points addressed are as follows: (1) Description of management practices related to allelopathy and allelochemicals in agriculture. (2) Discussion of the progress regarding the mode of action of allelochemicals and the physiological mechanisms of allelopathy, consisting of the influence on cell micro- and ultra-structure, cell division and elongation, membrane permeability, oxidative and antioxidant systems, growth regulation systems, respiration, enzyme synthesis and metabolism, photosynthesis, mineral ion uptake, protein and nucleic acid synthesis. (3) Evaluation of the effect of ecological mechanisms exerted by allelopathy on microorganisms and the ecological environment. (4) Discussion of existing problems and proposal for future research directions in this field to provide a useful reference for future studies on plant allelopathy.
Journal Article
Population-averaged atlas of the macroscale human structural connectome and its network topology
A comprehensive map of the structural connectome in the human brain has been a coveted resource for understanding macroscopic brain networks. Here we report an expert-vetted, population-averaged atlas of the structural connectome derived from diffusion MRI data (N = 842). This was achieved by creating a high-resolution template of diffusion patterns averaged across individual subjects and using tractography to generate 550,000 trajectories of representative white matter fascicles annotated by 80 anatomical labels. The trajectories were subsequently clustered and labeled by a team of experienced neuroanatomists in order to conform to prior neuroanatomical knowledge. A multi-level network topology was then described using whole-brain connectograms, with subdivisions of the association pathways showing small-worldness in intra-hemisphere connections, projection pathways showing hub structures at thalamus, putamen, and brainstem, and commissural pathways showing bridges connecting cerebral hemispheres to provide global efficiency. This atlas of the structural connectome provides representative organization of human brain white matter, complementary to traditional histologically-derived and voxel-based white matter atlases, allowing for better modeling and simulation of brain connectivity for future connectome studies.
Journal Article
Observation of Fermi arc surface states in a topological metal
The topology of the electronic structure of a crystal is manifested in its surface states. Recently, a distinct topological state has been proposed in metals or semimetals whose spin-orbit band structure features three-dimensional Dirac quasiparticles. We used angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to experimentally observe a pair of spin-polarized Fermi arc surface states on the surface of the Dirac semimetal Na3Bi at its native chemical potential. Our systematic results collectively identify a topological phase in a gapless material. The observed Fermi arc surface states open research frontiers in fundamental physics and possibly in spintronics.
Journal Article
Connectometry: A statistical approach harnessing the analytical potential of the local connectome
Here we introduce the concept of the local connectome: the degree of connectivity between adjacent voxels within a white matter fascicle defined by the density of the diffusing spins. While most human structural connectomic analyses can be summarized as finding global connectivity patterns at either end of anatomical pathways, the analysis of local connectomes, termed connectometry, tracks the local connectivity patterns along the fiber pathways themselves in order to identify the subcomponents of the pathways that express significant associations with a study variable. This bottom-up analytical approach is made possible by reconstructing diffusion MRI data into a common stereotaxic space that allows for associating local connectomes across subjects. The substantial associations can then be tracked along the white matter pathways, and statistical inference is obtained using permutation tests on the length of coherent associations and corrected for multiple comparisons. Using two separate samples, with different acquisition parameters, we show how connectometry can capture variability within core white matter pathways in a statistically efficient manner and extract meaningful variability from white matter pathways, complements graph-theoretic connectomic measures, and is more sensitive than region-of-interest approaches.
•Here we introduce the concept of the local connectome.•Connectometry “tracks-difference” in local connectomes.•It avoids the limitations of fiber tracking in mapping end-to-end connectivity.•It can be combined with any statistical model to study feature-related variance.
Journal Article
Comments on: “Mesenchymal stem cells transplantation for perianal fistulas: a systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials”
The meta-analysis by Wang et al. (Stem Cell Res Ther 14(1):103, 2023) aims to explore whether mesenchymal stem cells are effective for perianal fistulas. The authors indicated that the difference in cell types, cell sources and cell dosages did not influence mesenchymal stem cells’ efficacy, which may not be accurate. I think that local treatment with higher dosages of mesenchymal stem cells seems to not result in a higher healing rate. And, future trials should focus on donor characteristics considering past medical history of further autoimmunity, timely and cost-effective treatment to lighten the optimized therapeutic goals. In the future, it will be interesting to assess the safety and feasibility of injection of fibrin glue combined with mesenchymal stem cells in perianal fistulas.
Journal Article
Deterministic Diffusion Fiber Tracking Improved by Quantitative Anisotropy
Diffusion MRI tractography has emerged as a useful and popular tool for mapping connections between brain regions. In this study, we examined the performance of quantitative anisotropy (QA) in facilitating deterministic fiber tracking. Two phantom studies were conducted. The first phantom study examined the susceptibility of fractional anisotropy (FA), generalized factional anisotropy (GFA), and QA to various partial volume effects. The second phantom study examined the spatial resolution of the FA-aided, GFA-aided, and QA-aided tractographies. An in vivo study was conducted to track the arcuate fasciculus, and two neurosurgeons blind to the acquisition and analysis settings were invited to identify false tracks. The performance of QA in assisting fiber tracking was compared with FA, GFA, and anatomical information from T1-weighted images. Our first phantom study showed that QA is less sensitive to the partial volume effects of crossing fibers and free water, suggesting that it is a robust index. The second phantom study showed that the QA-aided tractography has better resolution than the FA-aided and GFA-aided tractography. Our in vivo study further showed that the QA-aided tractography outperforms the FA-aided, GFA-aided, and anatomy-aided tractographies. In the shell scheme (HARDI), the FA-aided, GFA-aided, and anatomy-aided tractographies have 30.7%, 32.6%, and 24.45% of the false tracks, respectively, while the QA-aided tractography has 16.2%. In the grid scheme (DSI), the FA-aided, GFA-aided, and anatomy-aided tractographies have 12.3%, 9.0%, and 10.93% of the false tracks, respectively, while the QA-aided tractography has 4.43%. The QA-aided deterministic fiber tracking may assist fiber tracking studies and facilitate the advancement of human connectomics.
Journal Article