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In modern industries, the aerobic oxidation of C(sp3)-H bonds to achieve the value-added conversion of hydrocarbons requires high temperatures and pressures, which significantly increases energy consumption and capital investment. The development of a light-driven strategy, even under natural sunlight and ambient air, is therefore of great significance. Here we develop a series of hetero-motif molecular junction photocatalysts containing two bifunctional motifs. With these materials, the reduction of O2 and oxidation of C(sp3)-H bonds can be effectively accomplished, thus realizing efficient aerobic oxidation of C(sp3)-H bonds in e.g., toluene and ethylbenzene. Especially for ethylbenzene oxidation reactions, excellent catalytic capacity (861 mmol g cat−1) is observed. In addition to the direct oxidation of C(sp3)-H bonds, CeBTTD-A can also be applied to other types of aerobic oxidation reactions highlighting their potential for industrial applications. The authors report a family of photocatalysts containing Ce active sites and perylene diimide ligands for the aerobic oxidation of substituted toluene, ethylbenzene, benzyl alcohol, thioanisole, and benzylamine in acetonitrile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To evaluate the functional and structural outcomes of intravitreal conbercept monotherapy using a "3 + pro re nata (PRN)" regimen in treatment-naïve subjects with polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) up to 12 months. Methods: Thirty subjects (30 eyes) with PCV participated in this interventional, retrospective study. All subjects received intravitreal injections of 0.5 mg (0.05 ml) conbercept using a "3 + PRN" regimen for 12 months. The changes in best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) parameters, polyp lesion area, and regression rate were evaluated at baseline, month 3, and month 12. Results: At the study end-point, BCVA improved significantly from 52.80 ± 17.17 ETDRS letters at baseline to 62.20 ± 18.96 letters (P < 0.001), with a mean gain of 9.40 ± 14.97 letters. The central retinal thickness (CRT) significantly reduced from 454.93 ± 147.31 μm at baseline to 308.73 ± 106.80 μm (P < 0.001) at end-point, and the total macular volume (TMV) decreased from 9.51 ± 1.04 mm3 at baseline to 8.32 ± 0.84 mm3 at end-point (P < 0.001). The mean volume of pigment epithelial detachment (PED) decreased from 0.73 ± 0.97 mm3 at baseline to 0.48 ± 0.71 mm3 (P < 0.05) at month 3. At month 12, the mean volume of PED was 0.57 ± 0.80 mm3 (P > 0.05 compared to baseline). After the 3-monthly loading injections, 6 eyes (20.0%) showed complete polyp regression, whereas a total of 19 eyes (63.5%) showed complete regression at month 12. The average injections given per subject were 7.70 ± 1.81. Conclusion: Intravitreal conbercept using the "3 + PRN" regimen was effective in the treatment of PCV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partially occluded faces are very common in automatic face recognition (FR) in the real world. We explore the problem of FR with occlusion by embedding Image Gradient Orientations (IGO) into robust error coding. The existing works usually put stress on the error distribution in the non-occluded region but neglect the one in the occluded region due to its unpredictability incurred by irregular occlusion. However, in the IGO domain, the error distribution in the occluded region can be built simply and elegantly by a uniform distribution in the interval - π , π , and the one in the occluded region can be well built by a weight-conditional Gaussian distribution. By incorporating the two error distributions and a Markov random field for the priori distribution of the occlusion support, we propose a joint probabilistic generative model for a novel IGO-embedded Structural Error Coding (IGO-SEC) model. Two methods, a new reconstruction method and a new robust structural error metric, are further presented to boost the performance of IGO-SEC. Extensive experiments on 8 popular robust FR methods and 4 benchmark face databases demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of IGO-SEC in dealing with facial occlusion and occlusion-like variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vertex k-partiteness vk(G) of graph G is defined as the fewest number of vertices whose deletion from G yields a k-partite graph. In this paper, we introduce some monotonic topological indices, and characterize the extremal corresponding graphs among graphs of order n and fixed vertex k-partiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel method called discriminative histogram intersection metric learning (DHIML) is proposed for pair matching and classification. Specifically, we introduce a discrimination term for learning a metric from binary information such as same/not-same or similar/dissimilar, and then combine it with the classification error for the discrimination in classifier construction. Compared with conventional approaches, the proposed method has several advantages. 1) The histogram intersection strategy is adopted into metric learning to deal with the widely used histogram features effectively. 2) By introducing discriminative term and classification error term into metric learning, a more discriminative distance metric and a classifier can be learned together. 3) The objective function is robust to outliers and noises for both features and labels in the training. The performance of the proposed method is tested on four applications: face verification, face-track identification, face-track clustering, and image classification. Evaluations on the challenging restricted protocol of Labeled Faces in the Wild (LFW) benchmark, a dataset with more than 7 000 face-tracks, and Caltech-101 dataset validate the robustness and discriminability of the proposed metric learning, compared with the recent state-of-the-art approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Clinical trials have revealed that the antivascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapies are effective in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). But the low level of VEGF was necessary as a survival signal in healthy conditions, and endogenous placental growth factor (PIGF) is redundant for development. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the PIGF expression under hypoxia as well as the influence of anti-VEGF therapy on PIGF. Methods: CoCl-induced hypoxic human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were used for an in vitro study, and oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) mice models were used for an in vivo study. The expression patterns of PIGF under hypoxic conditions and the influence of anti-VEGF therapy on PIGF were evaluated by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RTPCR). The retinal avascular areas and neovascularization (NV) areas of anti-VEGF, anti-PIGF and combination treatments were calculated. Retina PIGF concentration was evaluated by ELISA after treatment. The vasoactive effects of exogenous PIGF on HUVECs were investigated by proliferation and migration studies. Results: PIGF mRNA expression was reduced by hypoxia in OIR mice, in HUVECs under hypoxia and anti-VEGF treatment. However, PIGF expression was reversed by anti-VEGF therapy in the OIR model and in HUVECs under hypoxia. Exogenous PIGF significantly inhibited HUVECs proliferation and migration under normal conditions, but it stimulated cell proliferation and migration under hypoxia. Anti-PIGF treatment was effective for neovascular tufts in OIR mice ( P<0.05). Conclusion: The finding that PIGF expression is iatrogenically up-regulated by anti-VEGF therapy provides a consideration to combine it with anti-PIGF therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Although much effort has been put into dealing with CMV retinitis secondary to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), the few reports which have been published have mainly focused on treatment of CMVR after HSCT. Methods: This clinical interventional retrospective study included 14 patients (eight men; mean age 23.89 ± 12.09; 23 eyes) who suffered from CMV retinitis after stem-cell transplantation, in order to evaluate the efficacy and safety of multiple intravitreal injections of ganciclovir (IVG) for patients with CMV retinitis. All patients received 4 injections of IVG of 1 mg at 1 week intervals, and were followed up weekly for at least 2 months with measurement of best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and CMV levels in anterior aqueous humor with real-time polymerase chain reaction. Anterior aqueous humor was obtained before each injection. Results: The levels of CMV in anterior aqueous humor showed significant decrease from (6.34 ± 15.78) × 10 copies/ml at baseline to (5.22 ± 12.15) × 10 copies/ml at 1 month ( P < 0.001, Mann-Whitney U test). CMV couldn't be detected in 11 eyes (47.8 %) after two injections, and this rose to 18 eyes (78.3 %) at 1 month. The mean logMAR BCVA was 0.659 ± 0.572 at baseline and 0.680 ± 0.527 at 2 months, which suggested no significant improvement ( P = 0.736, Mann-Whitney U test) during the procedure. All patients experienced improved vitreous opacity and diminished area of the lesion under funduscopy after 4 injections of IVG. No severe complications developed. Conclusions: Multiple IVG seemed to be beneficial for patients with CMV retinitis after stem-cell transplantation, in reducing CMV levels in aqueous humor. Further study to optimize the dose of ganciclovir is needed in order to achieve better treatment outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To describe the clinical characteristics of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) in a large number of Chinese patients. Methods: This study enrolled 204 consecutive patients (246 eyes) in our department who were diagnosed as having polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy PCV. Patients underwent ophthalmologic examinations including best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) testing, ophthalmoscopy, fundus photography, fluorescein angiography, indocyanine green angiography, and optic coherence tomography. Results: Mean patient age was 66.1 years and 60.3% were men. Of the cases, 79.4% were unilateral and 51.2% of BCVA was less than 35 letters. In 171 eyes (69.5%), polypoidal lesions were located in the macula area. Among them, polypoidal lesions were located in the foveal area in 29 eyes (11.8%), in the parafoveal area in 50 eyes (20.3%), and in the extrafoveal area in 88 eyes (35.8%), in both the foveal and parafoveal area in three eyes (1.2%), and in both the parafoveal and extrafoveal area in one eye (0.4%). In 37 eyes (15.0%), PCV lesions were under the temporal retinal vascular arcade; in 11 eyes (4.5%), PCV lesions were found peripapillary. PCV lesion formation was single in 88 eyes (35.8%), cluster in 145 eyes (59.0%), string in two eyes (0.8%), and branch in two eyes (0.8%). In nine eyes (3.6%), the formation of PCV lesions showed both single and cluster shape in the same eye. There were 54.5% with drusen, 44.7% with serous PED, 20.7% with hemorrhagic PED, and 39.0% with neuroretinal detachment. Conclusions: The majority of Chinese PCV patients were male, unilateral, and showed macular polyps. Drusen, serous PED, hemorrhagic PED, and neuroretinal detachment on OCT were commonly seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the previous paper by the first and the third authors, we present six algorithms for determining whether a given symmetric matrix is strictly copositive, copositive (but not strictly), or not copositive. The algorithms for matrices of order n ⩾ 8 are not guaranteed to produce an answer. It also shows that for 1000 symmetric random matrices of order 8, 9, and 10 with unit diagonal and with positive entries all being less than or equal to 1 and negative entries all being greater than or equal to -1, there are 8, 6, and 2 matrices remaing undetermined, respectively. In this paper we give two more algorithms for n = 8, 9 and our experiment shows that no such matrix of order 8 or 9 remains undetermined; and almost always no such matrix of order 10 remains undetermined. We also do some discussion based on our experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many mutations in the retinoschisis (RS1) gene have been identified, but there are limited clinical data relating to the different genotypes. This study investigated the genotype, clinical phenotype and therapies for X-linked juvenile retinoschisis (XLRS) patients in China to evaluate the effects of gene mutations and therapies on the prognosis of the disease. Thirty patients were recruited in the study. Genetic examination identified 8 novel RS1 gene mutations. Twenty-four patients were identified as missense mutation, which was the most common gene mutation in XLRS patients. Amino acids 102 and 209 were the most common mutation areas, accounting for a total 35.7% of all patients. Mutations affecting amino acid 102 were associated with poor results on the flash electroretinogram (ERG). Sixteen patients had various complications. Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drugs were given to four patients with hemorrhage or other complications, and serious adverse events did not occur. Our outcome demonstrates that missense mutation was the leading cause of XLRS and more than half of the patients with this missense had various complications. Anti-VEGF drugs may be an effective and safe way to prevent deterioration of XLRS with certain complications. There is wide genotypic and phenotypic variability in Chinese patients with XLRS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]