RLFDDA: a meta-path based graph representation learning model for drug-disease association prediction.

BACKGROUND: Drug repositioning is a very important task that provides critical information for exploring the potential efficacy of drugs. Yet developing computational models that can effectively predict drug-disease associations (DDAs) is still a challenging task. Previous studies suggest that the accuracy of DDA prediction can be improved by integrating different types of biological features. But how to conduct an effective integration remains a challenging problem for accurately discovering new indications for approved drugs. METHODS: In this paper, we propose a novel meta-path based graph representation learning model, namely RLFDDA, to predict potential DDAs on heterogeneous biological networks. RLFDDA first calculates drug-drug similarities and disease-disease similarities as the intrinsic biological features of drugs and diseases. A heterogeneous network is then constructed by integrating DDAs, disease-protein associations and drug-protein associations. With such a network, RLFDDA adopts a meta-path random walk model to learn the latent representations of drugs and diseases, which are concatenated to construct joint representations of drug-disease associations. As the last step, we employ the random forest classifier to predict potential DDAs with their joint representations. RESULTS: To demonstrate the effectiveness of RLFDDA, we have conducted a series of experiments on two benchmark datasets by following a ten-fold cross-validation scheme. The results show that RLFDDA yields the best performance in terms of AUC and F1-score when compared with several state-of-the-art DDAs prediction models. We have also conducted a case study on two common diseases, i.e., paclitaxel and lung tumors, and found that 7 out of top-10 diseases and 8 out of top-10 drugs have already been validated for paclitaxel and lung tumors respectively with literature evidence. Hence, the promising performance of RLFDDA may provide a new perspective for novel DDAs discovery over heterogeneous networks.

The influence of "small private online course + flipped classroom" teaching on physical education students' learning motivation from the perspective of self-determination theory.

Objective: The study aimed to enhance the learning motivation of college physical education students and improve their learning outcomes. Based on the perspective of the self-determination theory, this study explores the influence of "Small Private Online Course (SPOC) + flipped classroom" teaching on the learning motivation of students majoring in physical education and profoundly analyzes the influencing factors and promotion paths of learning motivation using this model. Materials and methods: A total of four classes (64 students) of physical education majors in a university were selected and randomly divided into an experimental group (34 students) and a control group (30 students). The experimental group received "SPOC + flipped classroom" teaching, the control group received traditional teaching. Before and after the 16-week intervention, learning motivation, teacher support perception, basic psychological need satisfaction, and academic emotions of the 64 students were measured, and the data were analyzed by repeated-measures analysis of variance and partial least square regression. Results: (1) The instructional intervention reduced non-regulation, external regulation, and introjected regulation, while increased identified regulation, intrinsic regulation, and self-determination levels in the students. The levels of non-regulation, external regulation, identified regulation, and self-determination were also significantly different from those of the control group. (2) After the intervention, the scores of support for autonomy, support for competence, support for relatedness, and need for relatedness in the experimental group were significantly higher than those in the control group. (3) Support for autonomy, support for competence, support for relatedness, need for competence and need for relatedness positively predicted the self-determination level, and intrinsic regulation and identified regulation negatively predicted non-regulation, external regulation, and introjected regulation. Conclusion: "SPOC + flipped classroom" teaching has a positive impact on students' learning motivation of basketball skills and promotes students' motivation autonomy. The improvement of support for autonomy, support for competence, support for relatedness, need for competence, and need for relatedness may be related to the improvement of learning motivation of college students majoring in Physical Education (PE). "SPOC + flipped classroom" teaching enables students to obtain more demand satisfaction by giving them more demand support, while demand support and demand satisfaction can promote the internalization of learning motivation so that students can maintain high autonomy motivation.

[Comparison of wear resistance and flexural strength of three kinds of bulk-fill composite resins].

PURPOSE: To compare the abrasion resistance and flexure strength of three bulk-fill resin composites with an universal nano-hybrid composite resins. METHODS: The specimens were prepared with three kinds of bulk fill composites (SDR , sonicfill, Tetric N-Ceram Bulk Fill) and an universal nano-hybrid composite resins(Herculite Precis). 10 mm in diameter × 2mm in height specimens were prepared for abrasion resistance, while 2 mm in width × 2 mm in depth×25 mm in length specimens were prepared for flexure strength. The specimens were mounted in a bal1-on-disc wear testing machine and abraded with the media artificial saliva(50 N loads, 10000 cycles).Flexural test was performed with an Universal Testing Machine at a cross-head speed of 1mm/min. One-way variance analysis was used to determine the statistical differences of volume loss and flexural strength among groups with SPSS 13.0 software package(P<0.05). RESULTS: The volume loss was as follows: SDR (1.2433±0.11) mm30.05). CONCLUSIONS: With regard to wear resistance and flexural strength, Tetric N-Ceram Bulk Fill is recommended as an alternative for posterior restorations.

[The effect of various irrigants on apically extruded debris: an in vitro study].

PURPOSE: To compare the amount of debris extruded apically from root canals when different irrigants were used. METHODS: Fifty-eight extracted single-rooted human mandibular premolars with straight root canals were used. The teeth were randomly divided into control group (group A, n=7) and 3 experimental groups (group B,C,D,n=17). All teeth were prepared for root canal therapy, and 3 different irrigants were used (group B: 1% sodium hypochlorite; group C: 2.5% sodium hypochlorite; group D: 17% EDTA). Debris extruded from the apical foramen during root canal irrigation was collected into tubes and the amount of debris extruded was counted and analyzed. Statistical significance was assessed by Student-Newman-Keuls test with SPSS 13.0 software package. RESULTS: Group B, C, D had more amount of extruded debris, which was significantly different from the control group (P<0.05). Group C had the highest amount of extruded debris,which was significantly different from the other group (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The type of irrigants used can affect the amount of apically extruded debris. 2.5% sodium hypochlorite can produce more apically extruded debris. 1% sodium hypochlorite and 17% EDTA are better than 2.5% sodium hypochlorite in terms of irrigation efficacy.