Search

An accurate detection can greatly contribute to the wheat ears in field environments. Traditional object detection models with horizontal bounding boxes cannot accurately detect the densely distributed wheat ears, particularly on the significant occlusion between ears and stalks. The high miss detection of wheat ears often occurs in the variation of illumination conditions, dense distribution, and small scales, due to the overlap of prediction bounding boxes. It is a high demand to orient the wheat ears with less noise and of large background for the high performance. In this study, an improved Oriented Region-based Convolution Neural Networks (R-CNN) model was proposed to detect and count rotated wheat ears. Firstly, the spatial pyramid pooling cross-stage partial networks (SPPCSPC) was added to the backbone network to generate the last layer of the output feature map. The sensing field was then enlarged to enhance the perceptual ability of the network; Secondly, the feature aggregation network and the efficient two convolutional block attention module (E2CBAM) hybrid attention mechanism module were introduced into the neck network to enrich the feature information in the feature map; Finally, the prediction bounding boxes were optimized using the flexible non-maximal inhibition algorithm soft-non maximum suppression (Soft-NMS), in order to optimize the predicted bounding boxes screening. The E2CBAM module was improved using the convolutional block attention module (CBAM) in the E2CA module, instead of the CAM channel attention module. The E2CA module was composed of two parallel ECA branch structures: the maximum and average pooling. Two adaptive convolution kernels were then obtained to sum. Finally, the channel assignment was weighted for the important channel information. The key feature was captured to improve the detection performance of the model. To verify the E2CBAM hybrid attention module, the path aggregation network (PANet) was introduced into the neck network to enrich the semantic and target location in the feature map. The detection accuracy of the model was then improved by 0.19 percentage points. Furthermore, the detection accuracy was improved by 0.16 and 0.31 percentage points, whereas, the number of parameters increased by 0.24 and 0.20 M. respectively, in the CBAM and E2CBAM hybrid attention mechanism module. The floating-point computation remained unchanged. Compared with the CBAM, the E2CBAM hybrid attention mechanism module improved the detection accuracy of the model by 0.15 percentage points, while reducing the number of parameters by 0.04 M with the unchanged computation. The experimental results show that the improved Oriented R-CNN model accurately represented the head direction of wheat ears, indicating better detection performance. The mean mAP of average accuracy was 2.02 percentage points higher than the original model, compared with the mainstream-oriented bounding boxes detection models. Moreover, the mAP values were improved by 4.99, 2.49, 3.94, 2.25, and 4.12 percentage points, respectively, compared with the mainstream rotating target detection models, Gliding vertex, R3det, Rotated Faster R-CNN, S2anet, and Rotated Retinanet. The Oriented RCNN was utilized to accurately represent the head direction of wheat ears. The background area was also reduced in the prediction bounding boxes. The model detection was more visually appealing. The finding can provide an effective way for the practical observation of the growth status of wheat ears and counting the number of ears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of New Building Materials / Xinxing Jianzhu Cailiao is the property of New Building Materials Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of New Building Materials / Xinxing Jianzhu Cailiao is the property of New Building Materials Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective · To investigate whether vitamin E could reverse the disruptive effects of bisphenol A (BPA) on steroidogenesis and to explore the optimal vitamin E concentration. Methods · Rat primary granulosa cells were extracted and exposed to BPA (0, 0.01, 0.1,1,10,100 μmol/L). After 48 h of incubation, culture medium was collected and estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4) were measured using ELISA kits. Then, granulosa cells were incubated with 5 μmol/L(average concentration in follicular fluid) or 25 μmol/L (high concentration in follicular fluid) vitamin E (α-tocopherol) or vitamin E (5 μmol/L or 25 μmol/L) plus BPA (10 μmol/L or 100 μmol/L) for 48 h, E2 and P4 were measured. Results · BPA at 10 μmol/L and 100 μmol/L suppressed E2 and P4 production in a dose-dependent manner (P<0.05). Vitamin E at 25 μmol/L significantly increased E2 and P4 levels by (44.89±15.18) % and (43.33±8.82) % (P<0.05), respectively. Coincubation of the granulosa cells with BPA and vitamin E (5 μmol/L or 25 μmol/L) restored the productions of E2 and P4, which were not significantly different from the control group (P>0.05). Conclusion · Vitamin E (5 μmol/L/25 μmol/L) could reverse BPA-induced reduction in steroid hormone production in rat ovary granulosa cells, and the antagonistic effect of 25 μmol/L vitamin E was more obvious than that of 5 μmol/L vitamin E. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective · To investigate the effects of maternal vitamin D deficiency and supplementation on the immunomodulatory function of Th1/Th2 in offspring rats. Methods · Forty-eight female SD (8-week-old) rats were randomly assigned to three groups, i.e control group (C group, n=16), vitamin D deficiency group (VDD group, n=16), and vitamin D supplementation group (VDS group, n=16). C group was fed a normal diet and VDD and VDS groups were fed a vitamin D deficiency diet. After four weeks, females and males were housed in a 2∶1 ratio. After gestation, C group and VDS group were fed a normal diet and VDD group was still fed a vitamin D deficiency diet. The vitamin D level in female rats was measured using LC-MS/MS at gestational day 10 (second trimester). The vitamin D level, the ratio of Th1/Th2, and expressions of serum IFN-γ and IL-4 in offspring were measured using LC-MS/MS, flow cytometry, and ELISA 4 weeks after birth, respectively. Results · For C group, VDD group, and VDS group, the 25(OH)D levels in female rats were (23.23±2.08), (5.52±2.36), and (11.35±1.84) ng/mL, respectively, while the 25(OH)D levels in offspring were (7.15±1.30), (0.93±0.22), and (6.82±1.37) ng/mL, respectively. The 25(OH)D levels in female rats and their offspring of VDD group were significantly lower than those of C group and VDS group (P<0.05). The Th1/Th2 ratios in offspring of C group, VDD group, and VDS group were 0.90±0.35, 0.24±0.08, and 0.94±0.26, respectively. The Th1/Th2 ratio in VDD group was significantly polarized toward Th2 and polarization of Th2 in VDS group was remarkably improved compared with C group. The IFN-γ levels in C group, VDD group, and VDS group were (18.72±5.66), (8.27±3.86), and (19.31±5.68) pg/ml, and the IL-4 levels were (3.49±0.52), (4.14±0.55), and (3.52±0.52) pg/ml. The IFN-γ level significantly decreased and the IL-4 level significantly increased in VDD group compared with C group and VDS group (P<0.05). Conclusion · Vitamin D deficiency in pregnant rats caused the imbalance of Th1/Th2 (Th2 polarization) and IFN-γ/IL-4 (drifting toward IL-4) in offspring. Vitamin D supplementation significantly improved the imbalance of Th1/Th2 and IFN-γ/IL-4 in offspring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Progress in Modern Biomedicine is the property of Publishing House of Progress in Modern Biomedicine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)