Search

The goal of open-vocabulary detection is to identify novel objects based on arbitrary textual descriptions. In this paper, we address open-vocabulary 3D point-cloud detection by a dividing-and-conquering strategy, which involves: 1) developing a point-cloud detector that can learn a general representation for localizing various objects, and 2) connecting textual and point-cloud representations to enable the detector to classify novel object categories based on text prompting. Specifically, we resort to rich image pre-trained models, by which the point-cloud detector learns localizing objects under the supervision of predicted 2D bounding boxes from 2D pre-trained detectors. Moreover, we propose a novel de-biased triplet cross-modal contrastive learning to connect the modalities of image, point-cloud and text, thereby enabling the point-cloud detector to benefit from vision-language pre-trained models,i.e.,CLIP. The novel use of image and vision-language pre-trained models for point-cloud detectors allows for open-vocabulary 3D object detection without the need for 3D annotations. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method improves at least 3.03 points and 7.47 points over a wide range of baselines on the ScanNet and SUN RGB-D datasets, respectively. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive analysis to explain why our approach works., Comment: I want to update this manuscript

The advent of single-cell sequencing opened a new era in transcriptomic and genomic research. To understand cell composition using single-cell studies, a variety of cell markers have been widely used to label individual cell types. However, the specific database of cell markers for use by the plant research community remains very limited. To overcome this problem, we developed the Plant Cell Marker DataBase (PCMDB, http://www.tobaccodb.org/pcmdb/), which is based on a uniform annotation pipeline. By manually curating over 130 000 research publications, we collected a total of 81 117 cell marker genes of 263 cell types in 22 tissues across six plant species. Tissue- and cell-specific expression patterns can be visualized using multiple tools: eFP Browser, Bar, and UMAP/TSNE graph. The PCMDB also supports several analysis tools, including SCSA and SingleR, which allows for user annotation of cell types. To provide information about plant species currently unsupported in PCMDB, potential marker genes for other plant species can be searched based on homology with the supported species. PCMDB is a user-friendly hierarchical platform that contains five built-in search engines. We believe PCMDB will constitute a useful resource for researchers working on cell type annotation and the prediction of the biological function of individual cells.

Additional file 2: Western blot images.

In this paper, we propose multi-agent automated machine learning (MA2ML) with the aim to effectively handle joint optimization of modules in automated machine learning (AutoML). MA2ML takes each machine learning module, such as data augmentation (AUG), neural architecture search (NAS), or hyper-parameters (HPO), as an agent and the final performance as the reward, to formulate a multi-agent reinforcement learning problem. MA2ML explicitly assigns credit to each agent according to its marginal contribution to enhance cooperation among modules, and incorporates off-policy learning to improve search efficiency. Theoretically, MA2ML guarantees monotonic improvement of joint optimization. Extensive experiments show that MA2ML yields the state-of-the-art top-1 accuracy on ImageNet under constraints of computational cost, e.g., $79.7\%/80.5\%$ with FLOPs fewer than 600M/800M. Extensive ablation studies verify the benefits of credit assignment and off-policy learning of MA2ML.

Graphic design is ubiquitous in people's daily lives. For graphic design, the most time-consuming task is laying out various components in the interface. Repetitive manual layout design will waste a lot of time for professional graphic designers. Existing templates are usually rudimentary and not suitable for most designs, reducing efficiency and limiting creativity. This paper implemented the Transformer model and conditional variational autoencoder (CVAE) to the graphic design layout generation task. It proposed an end-to-end graphic design layout generation model named LayoutT-CVAE. We also proposed element disentanglement and feature-based disentanglement strategies and introduce new graphic design principles and similarity metrics into the model, which significantly increased the controllability and interpretability of the deep model. Compared with the existing state-of-art models, the layout generated by ours performs better on many metrics., Comment: The table on page 5 is wrong and does not indicate the metric corresponding to each value. At the same time, some of the data are questionable

The completed chloroplast genome sequence of Actinidia hemsleyana, collected from eastern China, was firstly determined using next-generation sequencing (NGS) and bioinformatic analysis. The length of cp genome was 156,845 bp, including a large single-copy (LSC) region of 88,666 bp and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 20,543 bp, which were separated by a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 23,818 bp. The cp genome contained 132 genes, including 83 protein-coding genes, 41 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes. The overall GC content was 37.19%, whereas the corresponding values of the LSC, SSC, and IR regions were 35.46%, 31.09%, and 43.06%, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis based on whole cp genome sequences of 20 Actinidia species showed that A. hemsleyana has the closest relationship with A.latifolia.

Background:Blattella germanica is a widespread urban invader insect that can spread numerous types of human pathogens, including bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. Despite the medical significance of B. germanica, the genetic diversity of this species has not been investigated across its wide geographical distribution in China.Objective:In this study, the genetic variation of B. germanica was evaluated in central China.Methods:Fragments of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene and the 16S rRNA gene were amplified in 36 B. germanica isolates from 7 regions. The sequence data for COI and 16S rRNA genes were analyzed using bioinformatics methods.Results:In total, 13 haplotypes were found among the concatenated sequences. Each sampled population, and the total population, had high haplotype diversity (Hd) that was accompanied by low nucleotide diversity (Pi). Molecular genetic variation analysis indicated that 84.33% of the genetic variation derived from intra-region sequences. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the B. germanica isolates from central China should be classified as a single population. Demographic analysis rejected the hypothesis of sudden population expansion of the B. germanica population.Conclusion:The 36 isolates of B. germanica sampled in this study had high genetic variation and belonged to the same species. They should be classified as a single population. The mismatch distribution analysis and BSP analysis did not support a demographic population expansion of the B. germanica population, which provided useful knowledge for monitoring changes in parasite populations for future control strategies.

The transportation and distribution of sucrose in plants is mediated by sucrose transporters (SUTs), which also participate in various plant developmental and resistance processes. However, no such study of the tobacco SUT family has been reported yet. In the present study, 11, 5, and 4 SUT genes were identified from the genomes of Nicotiana tabacum, Nicotiana sylvestris, and Nicotiana tomentosiformis, respectively. The exon–intron structures of the tobacco SUT genes were highly conserved in the three tobacco species. Gene loss, duplication, and chromosome exchange occurred in the NtSUT family during the formation of allotetraploid common tobacco. Expression profiling analysis revealed that the expression patterns of the NtSUT genes in common tobacco were closer to those in N. sylvestris plants. The NtSUT2s and NtSUT4 genes were ubiquitously expressed in various tobacco tissues, while the NtSUT1s gene was highly expressed in the maturing leaves, indicating their functional conservation and differentiation. The transcriptions of the NtSUT2t, NtSUT3s, NtSUT4, and NtSUT5s genes in tobacco plants were dramatically induced under Pi starvation, drought, and salinity stresses, but their highest expression levels occurred in different tissues, suggesting the multiple roles of NtSUTs in plant resistance to various abiotic stresses. This study provides useful information for the further functional characterization of SUT genes in tobacco.

Because of the urgent need of environment protection and energy saving, Chinese government has proposed ‘coal-to-electricity’ policy in north China to use air-source heat pump for space heating. Therefore, a cascade heat pump working at −20 °C and providing 75 °C hot water is studied in this work to match original cast iron radiator in cold climate in north China, which was seldom reported. It is also able to provide hot water for industrial and commercial use and work under single-stage mode in summertime. An experimental prototype of the cascade heat pump is designed and set up. Experimental results show COP of the cascade heat pump system can remain 1.69 at environment temperature as low as −21 °C and the COP is around 2 for most of the tested cases. In the tested temperature range, heating capacity varies from 11.32 to 18.93 kW, and discharge temperature varies from 93.95 to 91.42 °C. Thus, the cascade heat pump reveals good energy saving potential and can work stably demonstrating the feasibility to supply high-temperature water for space heating in coal-to-electricity retrofit. To study the switch between cascade and single-stage modes, computational models of the heat pump are established, validated with experimental data. The results imply cascade mode should be switched to single-stage mode when ambient temperature is higher than 20 °C, taking into account the COP, heating capacity, and discharge temperature. The studied system and results can be also used in other cold weather worldwide to help save energy.

Quad-tree based coding unit partition in High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) achieved significant coding efficiency improvements, but also brought increasing computational complexity. Especially, design challenges like data dependence, large area cost, and imbalance of processing time of each coding tree unit (CTU), make it hard to achieve a real-time structure for real-time hardware encoder for all CTU sizes. To solve these problems, we proposed a hardware-friendly fast CU decision scheme with multi-stage algorithms for HEVC hardware encoder, aiming at the most complex modules: IME (Integer Motion Estimation), FME/IP (Fractional Motion Estimation/ Intra Prediction), and MD (Mode Decision). Firstly, in IME stage, a zero block detection method based fast CU and PU decision algorithm was presented. Secondly, we presented an estimated RDO (Rate-Distortion Optimization) based algorithm in the Hadamard domain for the early CU decision further in FME/IP stage. Finally, under the condition of hardware computing time limitation of several CU sizes, we proposed a computation time constraint CU fast decision algorithm for MD stage. Experiments demonstrated that, compared with the original HM13.0 implementation, the proposed scheme achieved about 53.9% encoding time saving with merely 2.3% coding performance degradation. What's more, significant area cost and data dependency have been alleviated, which will be more hardware-friendly for HEVC encoder design.

The completed chloroplast genome sequence of Actinidia hemsleyana, collected from eastern China, was firstly determined using next-generation sequencing (NGS) and bioinformatic analysis. The length...

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) has caused large economic losses in the swine industry worldwide; therefore, research on relevant therapeutic medicines is still urgently needed. To define the relationship between histone acetylation and inflammation induced by PCV2, we investigated whether traditional Chinese medicinal polysaccharides could alleviate viral infection by regulating histone acetylation. In this study, Sophora subprostrate polysaccharide (SSP)-treated PCV2-infected murine splenic lymphocytes in vitro and murine spleen in vivo were used to explore the regulatory effects of SSP on inflammation and histone acetylation caused by PCV2. SSP at different concentrations significantly reduced the secretion levels of the proinflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-6, the activity of COX-2, the mRNA expression levels of TNF-α, IL-6, iNOS and COX-2 and the protein expression levels of iNOS and COX-2 but promoted the secretion and mRNA expression levels of IL-10. Furthermore, the different concentrations of SSP significantly regulated the activity of histone acetylase (HAT) and the mRNA expression of HAT1, increased the activity of histone deacetylase (HDAC) and the mRNA expression of HDAC1 and reduced the protein expression levels of Ac-H3 and Ac-H4. Overall, SSP inhibited inflammation in PCV2-infected murine splenic lymphocytes by regulating histone acetylation in vitro and in vivo, thus playing an important role in PCV2 infection.

Hydrogen gas (H2) has been recently regarded as a novel gaseous signaling molecule that performs multiple functional roles in plant. Here, we demonstrate that hydrogen rich water (HRW)-an experimentally tractable reagent to assess the effects of the H2 significantly delays wheat aleurone layer programmed cell death (PCD) induced by gibberellic acid (GA). Endogenous H2 production exhibited lower level in aleurone layers under GA treatment, whereas the H2 production was apparently increased under abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. HRW not only increased H2 production but also delayed GA-induced PCD. We further observed that application of HRW substantially prevented the increases of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and superoxide anion radical (O2.-) triggered by GA. HRW also directly react with hydroxyl radical (·OH) to delay GA-induced PCD. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and biochemical assays showed that HRW induced the transcripts and enzymatic activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and catalase (CAT) that metabolize reactive oxygen species (ROS); these increases coincided with the observed changes in O2.-, H2O2 and ·OH accumulation upon GA treatment. Our study therefore suggests that HRW-triggered alleviation of wheat aleurone layer PCD induced by GA results from a combination of H2-mediated decreases of ROS levels, including O2.-, H2O2, and ·OH.

Light is one of the most important environmental factors that strongly mediates plant physiological and morphological development. Few studies have investigated the effect of light on perennial fruit crops, which have long generation times and are large in size, that complicates the evaluation of plant responses to light in controlled environments. This study assessed the impact of light intensity on chlorophyll (Chl) variation in 41 kiwifruit cultivars during the growing season, and examined the physiological, morphological and gene expression changes of kiwifruit plantlets in vitro under different light qualities treatments, such as white light, red light (RL), blue light (BL) and a mixture of RL and BL with different ratios. The Chl content in 24.4% of kiwifruit varieties increased continuously with increasing sunlight intensity from April to August; but 34.15% of varieties remained unchanged and 41.5% of varieties decreased in July and August when kiwifruit plants were exposed to maximum solar radiation density and duration. The controlling experiment of light qualities showed that blue light was effective for the induction and accumulation of kiwifruit Chl contents and carbon nitrogen ratio (C/N ratio), as well as the numbers of guard cell plastids, whereas red light induced plant vegetative growth and increased starch and sucrose content in leaves. Furthermore, blue light induced higher expression of key genes for Chl biosynthesis than red light. These results indicate that kiwifruit plants exhibit strong morphological plasticity induced by light, and the development of kiwifruit can be induced by culturing the plants in vitro under a combination of BL and RL.

A host-selective, proteinaceous maize toxin was identified from the culture filtrate of the maize pathogen Cochliobolus heterostrophus. A dominant gene for toxin susceptibility was identified on maize chromosome 4. A toxic activity was identified from the culture filtrate (CF) of the fungus Cochliobolus heterostrophus, causal agent of the maize disease southern leaf blight (SLB) with differential toxicity on maize lines. Two independent mapping populations; a 113-line recombinant inbred line population and a 258-line association population, were used to map loci associated with sensitivity to the CF at the seedling stage. A major QTL on chromosome 4 was identified at the same locus using both populations. Mapping in the association population defined a 400 kb region that contained the sensitivity locus. By comparing CF-sensitivity of the parents of the RIL population with that of the F1 progeny, we determined that the sensitivity allele was dominant. No relationship was observed between CF-sensitivity in seedlings and SLB susceptibility in mature plants; however, a significant correlation (− 0.58) was observed between SLB susceptibility and CF-sensitivity in seedlings. The activity of the CF was light-dependent and was sensitive to pronase, indicating that the toxin was proteinaceous.

Rationale: The incidence of double aneurysms on the ophthalmic segment of the internal carotid artery (ICA) is very rare. Nevertheless, delayed rupture of a parent artery instead of the aneurysmal sac following pipeline embolization device (PLED) is unusual. Patient concerns: We present a 72-year-old female who was admitted at our facility with gradual onset of nonspecific visual changes. Diagnosis: Conventional angiography revealed 2 aneurysms located at the ophthalmic segment of the left ICA. Interventions: Both aneurysms were successfully treated with PLED. Outcomes: Two months after discharge, the patient was rushed into the emergency with bilateral conjunctival congestion. Computed tomography revealed intracranial hemorrhage at left temporal lobe while digital subtraction angiography established a left direct carotid cavernous fistula. We utilized stent (Solitaire 6∗30) assisted coils to occlude the fistula. The patient is well and go about her normal duties. Lessions: Manipulation of the tortuous parent artery resulted in a focal traumatic weakness in the artery and subsequently a delay tear. We are of the view that, endovascular surgeons should be on the lookout for this complication following flow deviation treatment modalities.

In recent years, atmospheric particulate matter has become the primary air pollutant in most cities of China. In order to support an efficient control for particles reduction, it is of great importance to investigate the contribution of different sources to particulate matter. Source apportionment has been a conventional technique for seeking the emission sources of particulate matter. There are many ways to investigate the source of particles, such as receptor models, emission inventories, trajectory analysis, dispersion models, photochemical models and source models. Receptor models were shown to be an effective tool for source apportionment. As one of the most popular receptor models, the Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) model estimates the sources contribution rate based on chemical characteristics of particulate samples. Traditionally, apportioning various sources of particulate matter is mainly through offline chemical composition analysis in combination with measurements in receptor regions. This method is limited by observational periods and locations and is applicable only for historical events. So researches on the source apportionment of PM2.5 with high spatial and temporal resolution in urban scale would be of great significance to control air pollution scientifically and improve urban air quality. The aim of this paper is to develop a source apportionment method of fine particulate matter based on a combination of numerical air quality model and receptor model. This method will simulate the chemical components of fine particulate matter accurately and evaluate the source contributions quantitatively at the same time. In this study, a new method is developed based on a numerical model (RegAEMS model) and a receptor model (PMF) to enhance the temporal and spatial resolutions of apportioning particulate matter sources. This method is applied to the period during the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Nanjing for apportioning fine particulate matter sources. With RegAEMS, the concentrations of PM2.5 and its main chemical compositions are simulated. We find that the simulations agree well with the results from the offline chemical composition analysis. Using PMF model, the components of fine particulate matter during the 2014 YOG (July to September) are identified, which include secondary organic aerosols (25.9%), combustion dust (16.5%), secondary sulfate aerosols (14.5%), secondary nitrate aerosols (12.6%), vehicle exhaust (12.0%), dusts (11.7%), and industrial activities (6.9%). Such results are in good agreement with sampling measurements. This study suggests that the contributions from combustion dust and industrial activities are lower during YOG than before and after YOG, indicating that the control measures of industrial activities during YOG are effective in reducing air pollution. This study suggests that integrated numerical modeling and receptor modeling can effectively assess contributions of different pollution sources, and thus be useful to source apportionments of heavy pollution events, providing scientific basis for emergency controls of air pollution. This finding will be useful for the local government to create efficient control strategies to reduce emissions of different sources of PM2.5.

To investigate the structure of Arthrospira platensis polysaccharide (PAP) (intracellular polysaccharide) and the antioxidant activity of the first component of PAP (PAP-1) on pseudorabies virus (PRV) -infected RAW264.7 cells. The PAP was separated and purified by the Cellulose DE-52 chromatography column and Sephacryl S-200 high-resolution gel column to obtain PAP-1. The antioxidant activity and regulation of PAP-1 on PRV-infected RAW264.7 cells of circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network were investigated by chemical kit, Q-PCR, and ce-RNA seq. The results indicated that the molecular weight (Mw) of PAP-1, which was mainly composed of glucose and eight other monosaccharides, was 1.48 × 106 Da. The main glycosidic bond structure of PAP-1 was →4)-α-D-Glcp-(1→. PAP-1 may be increased the antioxidant capacity by regulating the circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network in PRV-infected RAW264.7 cells. This study provided a scientific foundation for further exploring the antioxidant activity of PAP-1 based on its structure.

The HD-ZIP Ⅳ transcription factors have been identified and functional characterized in many plant species. However, no tobacco HD-ZIP IV gene has been isolated, and it is not yet known whether HD-ZIP IV genes are involved in controlling flavonols accumulation in plants. Here, we cloned a HD ZIP gene named NtHDG2 from Nicotiana tabacum, which belongs to the class IV of HD-ZIP family, and the NtHDG2-GFP fusion protein is localized to the nucleus. We further observed that the flavonols contents in the NtHDG2 overexpression leaves increase to 1.9-4.5 folds of that in WT plants, but in the NtHDG2-RNAi plants the flavonols contents reduce to 20.9%-52.7% of that in WT plants. The transcriptions of one regulatory gene NtMYB12, and three structural genes (NtPAL, NtF3'H, NtF3GT), contributing to flavonols biosynthesis, were significantly induced by NtHDG2. However, the transcription level of NtNAC002, a flavonols biosynthesis repressor, was also significantly up-regulated in NtHDG2-overexpression lines, but significantly down-regulated in the RNAi lines, indicating that HDG2 regulates the synthesis of flavonols as a complex regulatory network. Moreover, ectopic expression of NtHDG2 gene promoted the transcription of several AP2/ERF genes, including NtERF1-5, NtERF109, NtDREB1, and NtCIPK11, which participate in regulating root development and resistance to abiotic stresses. Our findings reveal the new function of HD-ZIP IV transcription factors in flavonoids biosynthesis, and indicate that HD-ZIP IV members may play an important role in plant resistance to abiotic stress. The NtHDG2 gene provides a promising target for genetically manipulating to increase the amounts of flavonols in tobacco leaves.

With a great deal of digitized textual information now available on the internet, it is almost impossible for people to assimilate all the information timely. Therefore, the technologies of topic detection and tracking are used for constructing news topics from news stories in order to bring convenience to people. However, traditional topic detection methods are not always so effective in detecting emerging hot news topics in a short period of time, and most topic detection methods use single-pass clustering algorithm which is with low accuracy and very sensitive to the input sequence of news documents. In order to improve clustering accuracy, we utilize a temporal distance factor to segment timeline into equal parts and propose a novel two-times single-pass clustering algorithm to deal with news stories in each part of timeline separately. Moreover, the aging theory is combined with our approach to build life-span model of topics from which we can obtain variation trend of hotness value of topics. The results of experiments show that our approach is effective and the life circle model of topics established by our method can conform to reality well.

Colour artefacts of demosaicked images are often found at contours due to interpolation across edges and cross-channel aliasing. To tackle this problem, a novel demosaicking method to reliably reconstruct colour channels of a Bayer image based on two different optimised mean-curvature (MC) models is proposed. The missing pixel values in green (G) channel are first estimated by minimising a variational MC model. The curvatures of restored G-image surface are approximated as a linear MC model which guides the initial reconstruction of red (R) and blue (B) channels. Then a refinement process is performed to interpolate accurate full-resolution R and B images. Experiments on benchmark images have testified to the superiority of the proposed method in terms of both the objective and subjective quality.

The industrial energy recovery network has a large energy-saving potential. The retrofit of the original heat exchanger network (HEN) plays an important role in reducing energy consumption in existing process industries. However, a single economic or energy target is no longer sufficient to meet the retrofit needs of existing process industries. Therefore, an improved retrofit method that comprehensively considers many-objective is worthy of exploration. In this study, a many-objective optimization model with energy, economic, environmental and engineering quantity (4E) indexes for heat exchanger network retrofit is proposed, which avoids the one-sided analysis brought by single-objective optimization. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm based on reference point (NSGA-III) is applied to solve the proposed retrofit model. Three typical cases are used to verify and analyze the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method. The case results show that the many-objective optimization method provides diverse retrofit options and flexibility to decision makers. Retrofit schemes with comparative energy, economic or environmental performance may take on notable difference in engineering quantity. Compared with the original networks, the retrofitted networks in the case studies can achieve a decrease in energy consumption up to 49.6%, a decrease in the total annual cost up to 22.2%, and a decrease in environmental impact up to 32.8%. Compared with the literature, the proposed method obtains optimization solutions with less energy consumption, capital cost, environmental impact and payback period.

Introduction: Coil migration (CM) is an extraordinary delayed complication associated with coil embolization as the definitive treatment for pseudoaneurysm (PA). Our case is a recurrent one with episodes occurring in approximately 2-year intervals. Case presentation: A teenager presented with a PA after a car accident in 2014. He was admitted and treated with stent-assisted coils at our institution. The patient experienced delayed coil migration into the nostril in 2017 which we resolved by cutting off the migrated coils under nasal-endoscopy. The remaining coils migrated into the oral cavity in 2019 and were completely pulled out under nasal-endoscopy. Conclusion: When a patient experienced CM in vitro, it is advocated that, the extruding coils be cut off while the remaining coils are left in-situ. As much as possible, coil should not be forcefully pulled out. Keywords: Recurrent, Pseudoaneurysm, Coil migration, Endovascular

The objective of joint rate allocation among multiple coded video streams is to share the bandwidth to meet the demands of minimum average distortion (minAVE) or minimum distortion variance (minVAR). In previous works on minVAR problems, bits are directly assigned in proportion to their complexity measures and we call it look-ahead allocation model (LAM), which leads to the fact that the performance will totally depend on the accuracy of the complexity measures. This paper proposes a look-ahead and feedback allocation model (LFAM) for joint rate allocation for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) platform which requires negligible computational cost. We derive the model from the target function of minVAR theoretically. The bits are assigned according to the complexity measures, the distortion and bitrate values fed back by the encoder together. We integrated the proposed allocation model in HEVC reference software HM16.0 and several complexity measures were applied to our allocation model. Results demonstrate that our proposed LFAM performs better than LAM, and an average of 65.94% variance of mean square error (MSE) is saved with different complexity measures.

In this letter, we address the problem of estimating Gaussian noise level from the trained dictionaries in update stage. We first provide rigorous statistical analysis on the eigenvalue distributions of a sample covariance matrix. Then we propose an interval-bounded estimator for noise variance in high dimensional setting. To this end, an effective estimation method for noise level is devised based on the boundness and asymptotic behavior of noise eigenvalue spectrum. The estimation performance of our method has been guaranteed both theoretically and empirically. The analysis and experiment results have demonstrated that the proposed algorithm can reliably infer true noise levels, and outperforms the relevant existing methods.

Rationale Dual aneurysms arising from the internal cerotic artery (ICA) is a very rare occurrence. Clinoid segment aneurysms (CSAs) are often seen at the carotid dural rings while cavernous carotid aneurysms (CCAs) are often a direct communication between the ICA and the cavernous sinus (CS). We present a case of complex concomitant occurrence of a CSA and a CCA complicated with delay aneurysmal rupture (DAR) resulting in carotid cavernous fistula (CCF) after our initial treatment of the patient with pipeline embolization devices (PLEDs) PATIENT CONCERNS:: We present a 64-year old female who we admitted at our institution due to one-year history of double vision. Neurological examinations were unremarkable. Diagnosis Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computer tomography (CT)-scan revealed dual aneurysms on the ICA. Digital subtracting angiogram (DSA) confirmed a small CSA and a large CCA on the right ICA. Interventions We treated both aneurysms with PLED and subsequently observed DAR of CCA as a complication. Outcomes We successfully occluded the fistula with ONYX (ev3, Irvine, CA) via the trans-venous approach. Lesions PLED was the best endovascular treatment option though DAR was inevitable. Although the trans-arterial approach may be the gold standard for the managing of CCF, the complex nature of our case made us opt for trans-venous approach. The trans-venous route is very appropriate for fistulas with complex parent arteries.

In real-world applications, the k-shortest-paths between a pair of nodes on a network will often be slight variations of one another. This could be a problem for many path-based models, particularly those on capacitated networks where different routing alternatives are needed that are less likely to encounter the same capacity constraints. This paper develops a method to solve for k differentiated paths that are relatively short and yet relatively different from one another, but not necessarily disjoint. Our method utilizes the sum of a path's distance plus some fraction of its shared distance with each other path. A minimax algorithm is used to select the path whose largest sum of length, plus shared length vis-a-vis each previously selected path, is as small as possible. We present computational results for the Chinese railway system, comparing the paths generated by a standard k-shortest-path algorithm with those from our new model.

In this article, we present four cases of rare anomalous aortic arch and vertebral arteries and discuss the possible embryologic etiologies. These include two cases in which the right vertebral artery originated from the right common carotid artery associated with an aberrant right subclavian artery originating from the middle of the aortic arch and two cases in which the left vertebral artery had a double origin from the left subclavian artery and aortic arch.

The multiplex amplification system of three tetrameric short tandem repeats loci (HUMTH01, TPOX and CSF1PO) were studied in Dong-xiang, Hui and Han ethnic groups from northwest China. All loci meet the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium by three tests. The allelic frequency data are statistically similar for three ethnic groups. This is the first time that Chinese Dong-xiang and Hui population data of DNA loci of forensic importance are reported.

Dans cet article, nous presentons quatre cas rares de crosses aortiques et d'arteres vertebrales anormales et discutons les etiologies embryologiques possibles. Il s'agit de deux cas pour lesquels l'artere vertebrale droite provenait de l'artere carotide commune droite avec une artere sous-claviere droite anormale provenant du milieu de la crosse aortique et deux cas dans lesquels l'artere vertebrale gauche avait une double origine de l'artere sous-claviere gauche et de la crosse aortique.