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Abstract Even though deep learning is fascinated in fields of coronary vessel segmentation in X-ray angiography and achieves prominent progresses, most of those models probably bring high false and missed detections due to indistinct contrast between coronary vessels and background, especially for tiny sub-branches. Image improvement technique is able to better such contrast, while boosting extraneous information, e.g., other tissues with similar intensities and noise. If incorporating features derived from original and enhanced images, the segmentation performance is improved because those images comprise complementary information from different contrasts. Accordingly, inspired from advantages of contrast improvement and encoding-decoding architecture, a dual multi-scale feature aggregation network (named DFA-Net) is introduced for coronary vessel segmentation in digital subtraction angiography (DSA). DFA-Net integrates the contrast improvement using exponent transformation into a semantic segmentation network that individually accepts original and enhanced images as inputs. Through parameter sharing, multi-scale complementary features are aggregated from different contrasts, which strengthens leaning capabilities of networks, and thus achieves an efficient segmentation. Meanwhile, a risk cross-entropy loss is enforced on the segmentation, for availably decreasing false negatives, which is incorporated with Dice loss for joint optimization of the proposed strategy during training. Experimental results demonstrate that DFA-Net can not only work more robustly and effectively for DSA images under diverse conditions, but also achieve better performance, in comparison with state-of-the-art methods. Consequently, DFA-Net has high fidelity and structure similarity to the reference, providing a way for early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases.

ABSTRACTWe investigate whether climate change affects the efficiency of monetary policy. We use temperature shocks, calculated as temperature deviations from historical average temperatures, to proxy climate change, and utilize a threshold vector autoregression model (TVAR) to estimate the impact of expansionary and tight monetary shocks on economic output under high and low regimes of temperature shocks. Our results characterize a climate change regime-dependent monetary policy. Expansionary monetary policy is less efficient and the negative impact of tight monetary policy is enhanced, when climate change is severe. The results can be explained by the climate-induced credit constraint of commercial banks. Higher temperature shocks lead to increases in banks’ non-performing loan ratios, which results in larger credit constraints of banks. Banks tend to be more prudent in credit expansion, and the bank credit channel of monetary policy transmissions is weakened.

Childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity rates have been increasing year by year, becoming extremely common and posing serious health risks, making it a global epidemic. Childhood obesity should not be ignored, and in-depth prevention and treatment should be implemented to reduce the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood and promote long-term health and physical development in children. Dietary therapy is beneficial for children to maintain a healthy weight, achieve nutritional balance, and prevent obesity. Additionally, specific nutritional requirements such as the ketogenic diet can be used in combination with dietary therapy to target the treatment of obese children. The traffic light diet plan can enhance children’s awareness of healthy eating and promote adherence to a balanced diet. However, childhood obesity is influenced by various factors. This article will analyze the causes of childhood obesity and incorporate the dietary concepts of ancient Chinese scholars. It will compare the different dietary treatment methods for childhood obesity in traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, such as the Warm Gallbladder Decoction, and explore other complementary interventions such as medication. By comparing the similarities and differences between traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, we can avoid their respective shortcomings and develop their advantages, combining them to provide feasible short-term and long-term treatment methods for obese children and adolescents. Furthermore, it can provide future research prospects for the development of dietary treatments specifically tailored to pediatric obesity patients.

Abstract Background It has been previously demonstrated that hyaluronan (HA) potentially regulates the initiation and propagation of bladder cancer (BLCA). HYAL3 encodes hyaluronidase and is a potential therapeutic target for BLCA. We aimed to explore the role that HYAL3 plays in BLCA pathogenesis. Methods HYAL3 expression in BLCA specimens was analyzed using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) cohort as well as confirmed in cell lines and The Human Protein Atlas. Then, associations between HYAL3 expression and clinicopathological data were analyzed using survival curves and receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The functions of HYAL3 were further dissected using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis and the protein–protein interaction network. Finally, we harnessed the Tumor IMmune Estimation Resource and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis to obtain correlations between HYAL3 expression, infiltrating immunocytes, and the corresponding immune marker sets. Results HYAL3 expression varied greatly between many types of cancers. In addition, a higher HYAL3 expression level predicted a poor overall survival (OS) in both TCGA-BLCA and GEO gene chips (P

Abstract Aiming at solving the trouble that digital image information is easily intercepted and tampered during transmission, we proposed a color image encryption scheme based on alternate quantum random walk and controlled Rubik’s Cube transformation. At the first, the color image is separated into three channels: channel R, channel G and channel B. Besides, a random sequence is generated by alternate quantum walk. Then the six faces of the Rubik’s Cube are decomposed and arranged in a specific order on a two-dimensional plane, and each pixel of the image is randomly mapped to the Rubik’s Cube. The whirling of the Rubik’s Cube is controlled by a random sequence to realize image scrambling and encryption. The scrambled image acquired by Rubik’s Cube whirling and the random sequence received by alternate quantum walk are bitwise-XORed to obtain a single-channel encrypted image. Finally the three-channel image is merged to acquire the final encrypted image. The decryption procedure is the reverse procedure of the encryption procedure. The key space of this scheme is theoretically infinite. After simulation experiments, the information entropy after encryption reaches 7.999, the NPCR is 99.5978%, and the UACI is 33.4317%. The encryption scheme with high robustness and security has a excellent encryption effect which is effective to resist statistical attacks, force attacks, and other differential attacks.

Many methods have been proposed to extract line segment (LS) correspondences for images with viewpoint variations. However, the matching performance on images with viewpoint variations is still limited due to the influence of discontinuous parallax and poor textures on images. Existing line segment matching (LSM) methods rarely consider the coexistence of these two situations. This study attempts to address this problem by proposing an adaptive feature region (FR)-based LSM method based on the observation that different FRs are suitable for different image scenes under image viewpoint change. In the proposed method, LSs are paired, and two types of FRs, symmetric FR centered on the line-pair intersection and asymmetric FR with the intersection as a vertex, are constructed for every line pair. The asymmetric FR of a line pair is a subregion of its symmetric FR. And the complement region of asymmetric FR in symmetric FR is called complement FR. To choose a suitable FR for the matching of each line pair adaptively, the asymmetric FR-based feature descriptor similarity and epipolar line-based constraints are combined to determine candidate line pair matches firstly. Then, the candidate matches with similar complement FR-based feature descriptors are considered initial matches and used to construct a topological constraint to check other candidates. Finally, we estimate an adaptive influence region-based local homography for each matched line pair to constrain the matching of unmatched individual LSs. The experimental results on the test images with viewpoint changes show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of Recall, matching precision (MP), and F-Measure (reflecting the overall matching performance of Recall and MP). Especially, it improves the average Recall and average F-Measure of the best method among the comparison methods by 45.20% and 25.83%, respectively.

The evolution of the U-Pb decay system is determined by their initial isotopic composition in the proto-Earth and the subsequent global differentiation. The differentiation is highly complicated because of large-scale evaporation and multi-stage core formation in Earth accretion. We statistically rebuild the accretional history of Earth using a series of N-body simulations. This provides us with an estimation of the amount of silicate melting and thus temperature and pressure at the bottom of the magma oceans driven by continuous planetesimal impacts. We further assumed different evolutionary paths of the redox state and found a reduced process from an oxidized state consistent with the current value of Pb content and μ value (238U/204Pb) in the bulk silicate Earth. Meanwhile, the fraction of the impactor's core that participates in the re-equilibration is around 0.2–0.7. Our model predicts the final μ value equals the observed value, 8.25, regardless of the minor contribution of the late veneer (0.2). The evolution of μ determines the growth rate of radiogenic Pb isotopes. The episodic increase of μ in multi-stage core formation accelerates the growth of radiogenic Pb isotopes (206Pb and 207Pb) and finally causes a slight deviation of the composition of Pb isotopes (206Pb/204Pb and 207Pb/204Pb) to the right of 4.567-Ga Earth Geochron. A multi-stage evolution model for U–Pb system can explain the modern terrestrial μ value, but has little influence on the puzzle of “the first Pb paradox”.

Image dense matching plays a crucial role in the reconstruction of three-dimensional models of buildings. However, large variations in target heights and serious occlusion lead to obvious mismatches in areas with discontinuous depths, such as building edges. To solve this problem, the present study mines the geometric and semantic information of line segments to produce a constraint for the dense matching process. First, a disparity consistency-based line segment matching method is proposed. This method correctly matches line segments on building structures in discontinuous areas based on the assumption that, within the corresponding local areas formed by two corresponding line pairs, the disparity obtained by the coarse-level matching of the hierarchical dense matching is similar to that derived from the local homography estimated from the corresponding line pairs. Second, an adaptive guide parameter is designed to constrain the cost propagation between pixels in the neighborhood of line segments. This improves the rationality of cost aggregation paths in discontinuous areas, thereby enhancing the matching accuracy near building edges. Experimental results using satellite and aerial images show that the proposed method efficiently obtains reliable line segment matches at building edges with a matching precision exceeding 97%. Under the constraint of the matched line segments, the proposed dense matching method generates building edges that are visually clearer, and achieves higher accuracy around edges, than without the line segment constraint.

Abstract Background The morbidity of rifampicin/multidrug-resistant tuberculous meningitis (RR/MDR-TBM) has shown an increasing trend globally. Its mortality rate is significantly higher than that of non-rifampicin/multidrug-resistant tuberculous meningitis (NRR/MDR-TBM). This article aimed to explore risk factors related to RR/MDR-TBM, and compare therapeutic effects of linezolid (LZD)- and non-linezolid-containing regimen for RR/MDR-TB patients in Shenzhen city. Furthermore, we aimed to find a better therapy for pathogen-negative TBM with RR/MDR-TBM related risk factors. Methods We conducted a retrospective study enrolling 137 hospitalized cases with confirmed TBM from June 2014 to March 2020. All patients were divided into RR/MDR-TBM group (12 cases) and NRR/MDR-TBM group (125 cases) based on GeneXpert MTB/RIF and (or) phenotypic drug susceptibility test results using cerebral spinal fluid (CSF). The risk factors related to RR/MDR-TBM were investigated through comparing clinical and examination features between the two groups. The mortality rate of RR/MDR-TBM patients treated with different regimens was analyzed to compare their respective therapeutic effects. A difference of P

Electromagnetic railgun attracts more and more attention due to its advantage in speed, cost, and obscurity. It is found that the rail should withstand huge mechanical and thermal shocks during the launching operation. The forms of rail failure are accompanied by gouge, grooving, transition, and arc ablation, etc. The service life of the rail has become a bottleneck restricting the development of electromagnetic railgun technology. A series of researches are carried out to solve rail failure, including analysing the failure mechanism and using various advanced rail materials. This paper provides a comprehensive review of rail materials, including material composition, preparation, microstructure, and properties. We begin from a short background of the requirement of the rail material. Then a detailed investigation of rail materials is described, and the performances of those materials are introduced. Finally, further development prospect of rail material is discussed.

In the core accretion model, planetesimals grow by mutual collisions and engulfing millimeter-to-centimeter particles, i.e., pebbles. Pebble accretion can significantly increase the accretion efficiency and help explain the presence of planets on wide orbits. However, the pebble supply is typically parameterized as a coherent pebble mass flux, sometimes being constant in space and time. Here we solve the dust advection and diffusion within viciously evolving protoplanetary disks to determine the pebble supply self-consistently. The pebbles are then accreted by planetesimals interacting with the gas disk via gas drag and gravitational torque. The pebble supply is variable with space and decays with time quickly, with a pebble flux below 10 M _⊕ Myr ^−1 after 1 Myr in our models. As a result, only when massive planetesimals (>0.01 M _⊕ ) are luckily produced by the streaming instability or the disk has low viscosity ( α ∼ 0.0001) can the herd of planetesimals grow over a Mars mass within 2 Myr. By then, planetesimals only capture pebbles about 50 times their mass and as little as 10 times beyond 20 au due to limited pebble supply. Further studies considering multiple dust species in various disk conditions are warranted to fully assess the realistic pebble supply and its influence on planetesimal growth.

A heterojunction photocatalytic material Cu31S16/Cu9S5 was successfully synthesized through a facile solvothermal method by controlling the reaction temperature. The phase composition, morphology, absorbance and surface area were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-vis diffusion reflection and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET). Transient photocurrent response and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were measured to support the generation and transfer of the photoinduced charge carriers. The heterojunction Cu31S16/Cu9S5 showed superior separation efficiency of the photoinduced charge carriers. The photocatalytic performance of the Cu31S16/Cu9S5 was evaluated through degrading high-concentration methyl orange (MO) solution under visible light. The degradation rate of MO solution increased to 94.8% in 60 min, showing the most remarkable photocatalytic ability. Moreover, a probable photocatalytic mechanism of the Cu31S16/Cu9S5 was discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: Psoriasis is a common autoimmune skin disease that significantly diminishes patients' quality of life. Interactions between primary afferents of the somatosensory system and the cutaneous immune system mediate the pathogenesis of psoriasis. This study aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of how primary sensory neurons regulate psoriasis formation. Experimental Approach: Skin and total RNA were extracted from wild‐type (WT) and ASH1‐like histone lysine methyltransferase (Ash1l+/−) mice in both naive and imiquimod (IMQ)‐induced psoriasis models. Immunohistochemistry, quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) and fluorescence‐activated cell sorting (FACS) were then performed. Microfluidic chamber coculture was used to investigate the interaction between somatosensory neurons and bone marrow dendritic cells (BMDCs) ex vivo. Whole‐cell patch clamp recordings were used to evaluate neuronal excitability after Ash1L haploinsufficiency in primary sensory neurons. Key Results: The haploinsufficiency of ASH1L, a histone methyltransferase, in primary sensory neurons causes both neurite hyperinnervation and increased neuronal excitability, which promote miR‐let‐7b release from primary afferents in the skin in a neuronal activity‐dependent manner. With a 'GUUGUGU' core sequence, miR‐let‐7b functions as an endogenous ligand of toll‐like receptor 7 (TLR7) and stimulates the activation of dermal dendritic cells (DCs) and interleukin (IL)‐23/IL‐17 axis, ultimately exacerbating the symptoms of psoriasis. Thus, by limiting miR‐let‐7b release from primary afferents, ASH1L prevents dermal DC activation and ameliorates psoriasis. Conclusion and Implications: Somatosensory neuron ASH1L modulates the cutaneous immune system by limiting neuronal activity‐dependent release of miR‐let‐7b, which can directly activate dermal DCs via TLR7 and ultimately lead to aggravated psoriatic lesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sudden leak of phenylethylene is an urgent issue for the surrounding environment. To mitigate its negative effect, the decontamination efficiency of phenylethylene on an activated carbon (AC)-based adsorbent was investigated. Factors such as the particle size and the temperature, that could affect the adsorption ratio, were explored. Meanwhile, the efficiency of AC, pretreated with different KMnO4 and NaClO concentrations, was examined. It was proven that the decontamination efficiency was higher for the 300-mesh AC compared to the 200-mesh AC. The introduction of the oxidizer, KMnO4, had a negative effect on phenylethylene adsorption. Nevertheless, the NaClO-modified AC showed a positive influence on phenylethylene removal, while its decontamination gradually improved with the increase of the NaClO concentration. It was also found that the adsorption rate of phenylethylene was ascended with the temperature rise. After 1 h of adsorption with AC heated to 200°C, no phenylethylene desorption was observed.

Members of the human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER) family, which includes HER1 (also known as EGFR), HER2, HER3 and HER4, have played a central role in regulating cell proliferation, survival, differentiation and migration. The overexpression of the HER family has been recognized as one of the most common cellular dysregulation associated with a wide variety of tumor types. Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) represent a new and promising class of anticancer therapeutics that combine the cancer specificity of antibodies with cytotoxicity of chemotherapeutic drugs. Two HER2-directed ADCs, trastuzumane-emtansine (T-DM1) and trastuzumab-deruxtecan (DS-8201a), have been approved for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013 and 2019, respectively. A third HER2-directed ADC, disitamab vedotin (RC48), has been approved for locally advanced or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer by the NMPA (National Medical Products Administration) of China in 2021. A total of 11 ADCs that target HER family receptors (EGFR, HER2 or HER3) are currently under clinical trials. In this review article, we summarize the three approved ADCs (T-DM1, DS-8201a and RC48), together with the investigational EGFR-directed ADCs (ABT-414, MRG003 and M1231), HER2-directed ADCs (SYD985, ARX-788, A166, MRG002, ALT-P7, GQ1001 and SBT6050) and HER3-directed ADC (U3-1402). Lastly, we discuss the major challenges associated with the development of ADCs, and highlight the possible future directions to tackle these challenges.

The number of death from insulin overdose, including accidental poisoning, suicide and homicide, is increasing these years. The forensic diagnosis of death from insulin overdose is a tough task. Glucose is the main energy source of the brain. Therefore, hypoglycemic brain damage is considered to be the main reason of death from insulin overdose. Recently, research of hypoglycemic brain damage caused by insulin overdose is gradually being paid attention in the field of forensic medicine. This paper summarizes the neuropathologic changes, pathophysiologic process and potential neural molecular markers of hypoglycemic brain damage caused by insulin overdose in terms of forensic neuropathology, providing reference for the research and practice in forensic medicine related fields.

Summary: The effects of ascorbate on adult cell fate specification remain largely unknown. Using our stepwise and chemically defined system to derive lateral mesoderm progenitors from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), we found that ascorbate increased the expression of mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) markers, purity of MSCs, the long-term self-renewal and osteochondrogenic capacity of hPSC-MSCs in vitro. Moreover, ascorbate promoted MSC specification in an iron-dependent fashion, but not in a redox-dependent manner. Further studies revealed that iron synergized with ascorbate to regulate hPSC-MSC histone methylation, promote their long-term self-renewal, and increase their osteochondrogenic capacity. We found that one of the histone demethylases affected by ascorbate, KDM4B, was necessary to promote the specification of hPSC-MSCs. This mechanistic understanding led to the metabolic optimization of hPSC-MSCs with an extended lifespan in vitro and the ability to fully repair cartilage defects upon transplantation in vivo. Our results highlight the importance of ascorbate and iron metabolism in adult human cell fate specification. : In this article, Liu and colleagues show a stepwise protocol for generating human skeletal MSCs from hPSCs via primitive streak and mesoderm. They show that ascorbate promotes the specification of hPSC-MSCs through ascorbate/ion-dependent dioxygenase. They report ascorbate promotes chondrogenesis of hPSC-MSCs which can fully repair cartilage defects. Keywords: human pluripotent stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, differentiation, cartilage, gene expression profile, ChIP-seq

Objective To summarize the characteristics of cases of electrocution due to direct current （DC） electronic hunter, and to provide references for forensic identification. Methods Four cases of electrocution due to DC electronic hunter were collected. Statistical analysis was carried out from the perspective of the scene and electric marks distribution, damage characteristics and histopathological changes. Results All the 4 cases of electrocution were accidental events. There were multiple electric marks, most of which were located in the lower limbs with serious damage. Some strip type electric marks were visible. Conclusion The distribution, morphological characteristics and severity of the electric marks caused by DC electronic hunter are different from those of the ordinary low-voltage alternating current damage. It is alerting that there would be actions of destroying the scene and abandoning the corpse in such cases.