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Our incomplete understanding of osteoarthritis (OA) pathogenesis has significantly hindered the development of disease-modifying therapy. The functional relationship between subchondral bone (SB) and articular cartilage (AC) is unclear. Here, we found that the changes of SB architecture altered the distribution of mechanical stress on AC. Importantly, the latter is well aligned with the pattern of transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) activity in AC, which is essential in the regulation of AC homeostasis. Specifically, TGFβ activity is concentrated in the areas of AC with high mechanical stress. A high level of TGFβ disrupts the cartilage homeostasis and impairs the metabolic activity of chondrocytes. Mechanical stress stimulates talin-centered cytoskeletal reorganization and the consequent increase of cell contractile forces and cell stiffness of chondrocytes, which triggers αV integrin–mediated TGFβ activation. Knockout of αV integrin in chondrocytes reversed the alteration of TGFβ activation and subsequent metabolic abnormalities in AC and attenuated cartilage degeneration in an OA mouse model. Thus, SB structure determines the patterns of mechanical stress and the configuration of TGFβ activation in AC, which subsequently regulates chondrocyte metabolism and AC homeostasis.

In this study, we report seawater dissolved zinc (Zn) concentration and isotope composition (δ 66 Zn) from the GEOTRACES GA01 (GEOVIDE) section in the North Atlantic. Across the transect, three subsets of samples stand out due to their isotopically light signature: those close to the Reykjanes Ridge, those close to the sediments, and those, pervasively, in the upper ocean. Similar to observations at other locations, the hydrothermal vent of the Reykjanes Ridge is responsible for the isotopically light Zn composition of the surrounding waters, with an estimated source δ 66 Zn of-0.42‰. This isotopically light Zn is then transported over a distance greater than 1000km from the vent. Sedimentary inputs are also evident all across the transAtlantic section, highlighting a much more pervasive process than previously thought. These inputs of isotopically light Zn, ranging from-0.51 to +0.01 ‰, may be caused by diffusion out of Zn-rich pore waters, or by dissolution of sedimentary particles. The upper North Atlantic is dominated by low δ 66 Zn, a feature that has been observed in all Zn isotope datasets north of the Southern Ocean. Using macronutrient to Zn ratios to better understand modifications of preformed signatures exported from the Southern Ocean, we suggest that low upper-ocean δ 66 Zn results from addition of isotopically light Zn to the upper ocean, and not necessarily from removal of heavy Zn through scavenging. Though the precise source of this isotopically light upper-ocean Zn is not fully resolved, it seems possible that it is anthropogenic in origin. This view of the controls on upper-ocean Zn is fundamentally different from those put forward previously.

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Fabric image retrieval is beneficial to many applications including clothing searching, online shopping and cloth modeling. Learning pairwise image similarity is of great importance to an image retrieval task. With the resurgence of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), recent works have achieved significant progresses via deep representation learning with metric embedding, which drives similar examples close to each other in a feature space, and dissimilar ones apart from each other. In this paper, we propose a novel embedding method termed focus ranking that can be easily unified into a CNN for jointly learning image representations and metrics in the context of fine-grained fabric image retrieval. Focus ranking aims to rank similar examples higher than all dissimilar ones by penalizing ranking disorders via the minimization of the overall cost attributed to similar samples being ranked below dissimilar ones. At the training stage, training samples are organized into focus ranking units for efficient optimization. We build a large-scale fabric image retrieval dataset (FIRD) with about 25,000 images of 4,300 fabrics, and test the proposed model on the FIRD dataset. Experimental results show the superiority of the proposed model over existing metric embedding models.

Background:Benefits of yoga practice in patients with knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis remains controversial. This study performs a meta-analysis to quantify the efficiency of yoga exercise for patients pain reduction, functional recovery, and general wellbeing.Methods:A computerized search of PubMed and Embase was performed to identify relevant studies. The outcome measures were pain, stiffness, and physical function. Two investigators identified eligible studies and extracted data independently. The quality of citations was measured using Jadad score. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated for pain, musculoskeletal impairment, quality of life, general wellbeing, and mental wellbeing.Results:A total of 13 clinical trials involving 1557 patients with knee osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis were included in final meta-analysis with the average Jadad score 2.8. The SMD was −0.98 (95% CI −1.18, −0.78, P < .05) for pain, −1.83 (95% CI −2.09, −1.57, P < .05) for functional disability, was 0.80 (95% CI 0.59, 1.01, P < .05) for Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) general health, 0.49 (95% CI 0.14, 0.82, P < .05) for SF-36 mental health, and HAQ was −0.55 (95% CI −0.83, −0.26, P < .05) for health associated questionnaire (HAQ). All the results favor yoga training group.Conclusions:Regular yoga training is helpful in reducing knee arthritic symptoms, promoting physical function, and general wellbeing in arthritic patients.

BackgroundThe majority of hepatocellular carcinoma patients (HCCs) with extrahepatic metastases die of progressive intrahepatic tumor. There have been little data on the role of primary tumor resection (PTR) for HCCs with extrahepatic metastases but with resectable primary tumors.MethodsA retrospective study was conducted on HCCs with extrahepatic metastases with resectable primary tumors who either underwent or did not undergo PTR in the SEER registry between 2004 and 2013. The overall and cancer‐specific survivals (OS and CSS) were assessed by the log‐rank test and the Cox proportional hazard regression model. A propensity score matching was conducted to minimize biases. Validation was performed in another cohort from the Sun Yat‐sen Memorial Hospital (SYSMH).ResultsOf the 529 HCCs with extrahepatic metastases with resectable primary tumors included into this study, 230 patients underwent PTR and 299 did not. The percentages of patients who underwent PTR increased from 38.6% in 2004 to 70.3% in 2013. In the propensity score‐matched patients, PTR was associated with improved OS (HR 0.310, P < 0.001) and CSS (HR 0.326, P <0.001). These improvements in survivals remained significant after sensitivity analyses using multiple imputation. In the validation cohort from the SYSMH (n = 131), PTR was also correlated with improved OS (HR 0.508, P = 0.002) and CSS (HR 0.568, P = 0.017).ConclusionsThis study using propensity score matching and multiple imputation demonstrated that PTR had a favorable impact on the prognosis of HCCs with extrahepatic metastases with resectable primary tumors. Further prospective randomized trials are needed to confirm these findings.

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