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To compare corneal and anterior segment morphology among children and adolescents with and without diabetes.PubMed, Embase and Scopus databases were systematically searched. Studies that were observational in design were considered. Included studies should have been done in young children and/or adolescents and compared relevant outcomes of interest based on the diabetic status. The outcomes of interest were related to corneal morphology, morphology of lens, as well as important characteristics of anterior segment such as depth, pupillary diameter, intra-ocular pressure and axial length. The pooled effect sizes were reported as weighted mean difference (WMD). STATA software was used for statistical analysis.The meta-analysis included 17 studies. Diabetic children had lower corneal endothelial cell density (cells/mm2) (WMD -215.7, 95% CI: -406.5, -24.9), higher central corneal thickness (µm) (WMD 12.66, 95% CI: 5.47, 19.84), higher lenticular thickness (mm) (WMD 0.25, 95% CI: 0.13, 0.36) and density (WMD 3.02, 95% CI: 2.23, 3.81) than non-diabetic children. The anterior chamber depth (mm) (WMD -0.17, 95% CI: -0.24, -0.09) and pupillary diameter (mm) (WMD -0.61, 95% CI: -1.12, -0.10) was significantly reduced in diabetic children, compared to non-diabetic children. No differences in the corneal curvature, corneal diameter, spherical equivalent, intra-ocular pressure, axial length, tear film breakup time and Schirmer test were noted among diabetic and non-diabetic children.Significant structural changes in cornea and lens along with reduction in anterior chamber depth and pupillary diameter were found. These morphological changes may be indication for early and prompt management and underscore the need for more advanced ophthalmological evaluation techniques, in addition to routine examination.

What is already known about this topic? Hypertension has become a major public health problem worldwide because of its high prevalence and various complications, and it ranks the most important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). What is added by this report? The prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension in the labor force population in 2015 in China were 21.4%, 26.1%, 19.6%, and 6.3%, respectively. Hypertension prevalence in the labor force population remains high and the control of hypertension is still very low. What are the implications for public health practice? Effective public health strategies targeting the labor force population, especially older adults, males, and overweight and obese participants are needed for hypertension prevention and control.

Sleep is an important physiological activity. With the changing life style in this modern world, the average duration of sleep in human beings is decreasing, and the prevalence of sleep disorder or insomnia is increasing. Short duration and disorders of sleep or insomnia may often lead to increased prevalence/incidence of major chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and dyslipidemia. Currently, chronic diseases have become the main causes of death and with high disease burden among the Chinese. In the Healthy China Initiative (2019-2030), prevention and control of chronic diseases including "moving forward" , "slowing down the upward trend of the prevalence of insomnia" as the expected indices and "extending the sleep duration of adults to 7-8 hours a day" as the advocacy index, were all called for. In this group of articles, basic data for sleep status of adults in different regions of the country was provided to help understand the relations between sleep and major chronic diseases, and strategies related to prevention and control of chronic diseases.睡眠是一项重要的生理活动，随着现代生活节奏的不断加快，人们的平均睡眠时间不断减少，睡眠障碍或失眠率日益升高。睡眠时间过少、睡眠障碍或失眠可导致高血压、糖尿病、肥胖和血脂异常等主要慢性病患病/发病率升高。目前，慢性病已经成为我国居民的主要死亡原因和疾病负担，《健康中国行动（2019-2030）》中明确指出：慢性病防控要"关口前移"，将"失眠现患率上升趋势减缓"作为预期指标和"成人睡眠7~8小时"作为倡导性指标。本期重点号文章为我国和不同区域居民的睡眠状况提供了基础数据，为睡眠与主要慢性病研究奠定了基础，也为慢性病防控"关口前移"提供了科学依据。.

ObjectivesTo examine the relationship between sleep duration and hypertension of migrant workers aged 18–59 years in China.DesignPopulation-based cross-sectional study using a complex survey sampling design.ParticipantsThere were 43 655 subjects in our analysis, after excluding people with missing information for key exposure and outcome variables and abnormal values for sleep duration (≤2 or ≥17 hours).Primary outcome measureHypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure (BP) ≥140 mm Hg and/or diastolic BP ≥90 mm Hg, or self-reported history of hypertension diagnosis in hospitals at the township (community) level or above and use of hypertensive medicine in the last 2 weeks.ResultsOf 43 655 subjects, 15.6% (95% CI 15.1% to 16.1%) of migrant workers had hypertension. The prevalence of hypertension decreased with the increased sleep duration, both in males and females. Logistic regression models, using 7–8 hours sleep/day as the reference, showed a greater odds for hypertension among men and women who reported interaction=0.096). Further stratified by age and migration time, it revealed that among adults less than 45 years old, those sleeping 9 or more hours had adjusted odds for hypertension of 0.82 (95% CI 0.72 to 0.93, pinteraction=0.020),while there was no evidence of an association between sleep duration and hypertension among adults aged 45–59 years. Among adults whose migration time was less than 4.5 years, those sleeping 9 or more hours had adjusted odds for hypertension of 0.80 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.94, pinteraction=0.097).ConclusionThe association between sleep duration and hypertension varies by age. Short sleep duration (

In this paper, we present our novel design for switchable AR/VR near-eye displays which can help solve the vergence-accommodation-conflict issue. The principal idea is to time-multiplex virtual imagery and real-world imagery and use a tunable lens to adjust focus for the virtual display and the see-through scene separately. With this novel design, prescription eyeglasses for near- and far-sighted users become unnecessary. This is achieved by integrating the wearer's corrective optical prescription into the tunable lens for both virtual display and see-through environment. We built a prototype based on the design, comprised of micro-display, optical systems, a tunable lens, and active shutters. The experimental results confirm that the proposed near-eye display design can switch between AR and VR and can provide correct accommodation for both. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) Accepted version

Cardiac circulation is traditionally difficult for students from both high school and colleges to learn biology due its complexity and dynamic process. Cadavers can be used as a good tool for students to learn cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, this approach comes with some major concerns because of the collapsed anatomic structures, and no blood flowing. Also cadavers are normally available only in medical schools. Human subjects especially cardiac patients are ideal for students to learn human circulation from the perspectives of both structures and functions. This, however, is infeasible due to ethical and other constraints. As such most students learn cardiac circulation by reading text books, attending to lectures, viewing images and perhaps manipulating heart models. In this paper, we will present our efforts developing augmented reality (AR) technology to enhance learning of cardiac circulation. More specifically, a book based AR app APPLearn (Heart) is designed to allow each and every student learning the cardiac structure and function by interactive playing.

A novel and efficient 3D calibration method for different types of autostereoscopic multi-view 3D displays is presented in this paper. In our method, a camera is placed at different locations within the viewing volume of a 3D display to capture a series of images that relate to the subset of light rays emitted by the 3D display and arriving at each of the camera positions. Gray code patterns modulate the images shown on the 3D display, helping to significantly reduce the number of images captured by the camera and thereby accelerate the process of calculating the correspondence relationship between the pixels on the 3D display and the locations of the capturing camera. The proposed calibration method has been successfully tested on two different types of multi-view 3D displays and can be easily generalized for calibrating other types of such displays. The experimental results show that this novel 3D calibration method can also be used to improve the image quality by reducing the frequently observed crosstalk that typically exists when multiple users are simultaneously viewing multi-view 3D displays from a range of viewing positions. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore)

In this study, we aimed at investigating whether MEG3 may be involved in the pathogenesis of glaucoma by regulating the autophagy of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs).We used qRT-PCR to detect the expression of MEG3 in RGC-5s cell line under high hydrostatic pressure. RGC-5s were transfected with a lentiviral vector to achieve MEG3 overexpression or knockdown. The influence of overexpression or inhibition of MEG3 on cell proliferation and apoptosis was observed using CCK-8 test and flow cytometry. After overexpression of MEG3 and/or knockdown of MEG3 or Beclin-1, detection of the expressions of autophagy-related and apoptosis-related proteins was performed using Western blot.MEG3 expression level increased in RGC-5 cells under high hydrostatic pressure, while exogenously decreased MEG3 expression can reverse the impact of the high pressure on RGC-5 cells. Additionally, overexpression of MEG3 can improve Atg3 expression, promote cell apoptosis, inhibit cell proliferation, and enhance autophagy levels. Meanwhile, knockdown of Beclin-1 up-regulated Bcl-2 level.Upregulation of MEG3 is involved in the pathogenesis of glaucoma through promoting apoptosis of retinal ganglion cells, the mechanism of which may be related to the enhanced autophagy levels.

Online shopping provides a convenient and diverse shopping experience. However, elderly customers are unable to leverage such benefits due to their age-related impairments or lack of computer knowledges. To solve this problem, we extend our previous e-commerce website design with novel assistance functions including multimodal search and personalized speech feedback. In this paper, we evaluated the usability of these functions through a phenomenography based qualitative study. From the results, we found out several biases which affect senior users’ interaction with the assistance functions. Firstly, there is a gap between the icon metaphor and the senior users’ real world experience. Secondly, consistency is more important than flexibility in e-commerce website design for the elderly. Thirdly, senior users tend to show less interest to explore the website than younger ones. These findings and considerations will guide us in the following rounds of age-friendly assistance function designs to improve the senior user’s online shopping experience.

Confocal laser scanning microscopy has become a most powerful tool to visualize and analyze the dynamic behavior of cellular molecules. Photobleaching of fluorochromes is a major problem with confocal image acquisition that will lead to intensity attenuation. Photobleaching effect can be reduced by optimizing the collection efficiency of the confocal image by fast z-scanning. However, such images suffer from distortions, particularly in the z dimension, which causes disparities in the x, y, and z directions of the voxels with the original image stacks. As a result, reliable segmentation and feature extraction of these images may be difficult or even impossible. Image interpolation is especially needed for the correction of undersampling artifact in the axial plane of three-dimensional images generated by a confocal microscope to obtain cubic voxels. In this work, we present an adaptive cubic B-spline-based interpolation with the aid of lookup tables by deriving adaptive weights based on local gradients for the sampling nodes in the interpolation formulae. Thus, the proposed method enhances the axial resolution of confocal images by improving the accuracy of the interpolated value simultaneously with great reduction in computational cost. Numerical experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed interpolation approach and demonstrate its superiority both in terms of accuracy and speed compared to other interpolation algorithms. Microsc. Res. Tech., 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Summary With the rapid advance of three-dimensional (3D) confocal imaging technology, more and more 3D cellular images will be available. Segmentation of intact cells is a critical task in automated image analysis and quantification of cellular microscopic images. One of the major complications in the automatic segmentation of cellular images arises due to the fact that cells are often closely clustered. Several algorithms are proposed for segmenting cell clusters but most of them are 2D based. In other words, these algorithms are designed to segment 2D cell clusters from a single image. Given 2D segmentation methods developed, they can certainly be applied to each image slice with the 3D cellular volume to obtain the segmented cell clusters. Apparently, in such case, the 3D depth information with the volumetric images is not really used. Often, 3D reconstruction is conducted after the individualized segmentation to build the 3D cellular models from segmented 2D cellular contours. Such 2D native process is not appropriate as stacking of individually segmented 2D cells or nuclei do not necessarily form the correct and complete 3D cells or nuclei in 3D. This paper proposes a novel and efficient 3D cluster splitting algorithm based on concavity analysis and interslice spatial coherence. We have taken the advantage of using the 3D boundary points detected using higher order statistics as an input contour for performing the 3D cluster splitting algorithm. The idea is to separate the touching or overlapping cells or nuclei in a 3D native way. Experimental results show the efficiency of our algorithm for 3D microscopic cellular images.

Summary In recent years, cell biologists have benefited greatly from using confocal microscopy to study intracellular organelles. For high-level image analysis, 3D boundary extraction of cell structure is a preliminary requisite in confocal cellular imaging. To detect the object boundaries, most investigators have used gradient/Laplacian operator as a principal tool. In this paper we propose a higher order statistics (HOS) based boundary extraction algorithm for confocal cellular image data set using kurtosis. After the initial pre-processing, kurtosis boundary map is estimated locally for the entire volume using a cubic sliding window and subsequently the noisy kurtosis value is removed by thresholding. Voxels having positive kurtosis value with zero-crossing on its surface are then identified as boundary voxels. Typically used in signal processing, kurtosis for 3D cellular image processing is a novel application of HOS. Its reliable and robust nature of computing makes it very suitable for volumetric cellular boundary extraction.

Classification of “surface atoms” or “interior atoms” of proteins or other macromolecules is significant for many biochemical tasks, particularly for molecular docking. We present a simple and easy-to-implement algorithm for identifying surface atoms of macromolecules from interior atoms. Unlike existing methods that are based on geometry computations, our approach takes the advantage of graphics hardware, and most of the computations are fulfilled with graphics processing unit (GPU). The algorithm can be easily incorporated within visualization applications for macromolecules to enable the removal of interior atoms from a macromolecular structure, thus simplifying the graphics display and manipulation.

This paper proposes a method for robust hand detection for interactive touchless display using cascade classifier technique. A hardware system comprising a transparent display, two video cameras and a projector is assembled to generate on-display-surface object images for touchless display. A well-trained cascade of boosted classifiers is applied to detect the position of the hand in the object image. Using this method, accurate and robust hand detection for touchless display can be achieved. The detected hand trajectory information can be converted into mouse and keyboard inputs for interactive control and manipulation in virtual applications like virtual assembly and virtual design.

With the rapid advance of three-dimensional (3D) confocal imaging technology, more and more 3D cellular images will be available. Segmentation of intact cells is a critical task in automated image analysis and quantification of cellular microscopic images. One of the major complications in the automatic segmentation of cellular images arises due to the fact that cells are often closely clustered. Several algorithms are proposed for segmenting cell clusters but most of them are 2D based. In other words, these algorithms are designed to segment 2D cell clusters from a single image. Given 2D segmentation methods developed, they can certainly be applied to each image slice with the 3D cellular volume to obtain the segmented cell clusters. Apparently, in such case, the 3D depth information with the volumetric images is not really used. Often, 3D reconstruction is conducted after the individualized segmentation to build the 3D cellular models from segmented 2D cellular contours. Such 2D native process is not appropriate as stacking of individually segmented 2D cells or nuclei do not necessarily form the correct and complete 3D cells or nuclei in 3D. This paper proposes a novel and efficient 3D cluster splitting algorithm based on concavity analysis and interslice spatial coherence. We have taken the advantage of using the 3D boundary points detected using higher order statistics as an input contour for performing the 3D cluster splitting algorithm. The idea is to separate the touching or overlapping cells or nuclei in a 3D native way. Experimental results show the efficiency of our algorithm for 3D microscopic cellular images.

Current trends in digital display technology show a marked interest towards 3D displays, which allow three dimensional images to be conveyed to viewers. Among various 3D display techniques, auto stereoscopic display appears to be promising due to the use of optical trickery at the display, allowing glass-free viewing. However, the cost of generating and transmitting the auto stereoscopic images is usually quite high due to the huge amount of data. Hence, it is challenging to acquire artifact-free 3D images in real-time. This paper presents a system to generate and display high-resolution auto stereoscopic images at full HD resolution, i.e., 1920*1080*24. We show that the video-plus-depth data representation enables a scalable system architecture and efficient data transition. The proposed GPU accelerated depth image-based rendering (DIBR) algorithm and multiplexing algorithm are able to synthesize auto stereoscopic images in real-time. The synthesized images are then displayed on the auto stereoscopic screen that is mounted on a conventional LCD monitor. We demonstrate our system to both indoor activities and natural scenes.

Recent advances in high-resolution imaging have provided valuable novel insights into structural relationships within cells and tissues both in vitro and in vivo. An analysis of this kind is regularly done by optical sectioning using either confocal or deconvolution microscopy. However, the reconstruction of 3D images suffers from light scattering and absorption with increasing depth by finite transparency of the used media. Photobleaching of fluorochromes has been especially troublesome and often the only remedy for loss of signal during optical sectioning is to reduce the number of sections. This causes disparities in the x-y and z dimensions of voxels, which lead to vertical distortion of the original stack of images and necessitates interpolation. Interpolation is necessary to fill up the gaps between consecutive sections in the original image stack to obtain cubic voxels. The present manuscript describes a novel method for adaptive compensation of attenuation of light intensity in stacks of fluorescence microscopy images that is based on a physical model of light attenuation. First, we use a fast interpolation technique to generate a cubic voxel-based volume stack with the aid of a contribution look up table. With the contribution look up table, multiple calculations are avoided, which substantially reduces the computational time without compromising the accuracy of the restoration procedure. Second, each section within the resulting volume is processed to rectify its intensity values that have been altered due to photobleaching and scattering and absorption. The method allows to define the last good section in the stack and the correction is then done automatically.

Gradients play an important role in 2D image processing. Many edge detection algorithms are gradient-based. We are interested in 3D boundary detection which can be considered as an extension of 2D edge detection in 3D space. In this paper, an algorithm to automatically and quantitatively measure the suitability of gradient magnitudes in detection of 3D boundary points of confocal image stacks is presented. A Measurement Function is defined to evaluate the suitability of each gradient magnitude chosen to be the threshold for 3D boundary detection. The application of Gauss's Divergence Theorem provides a solution to calculate the Measurement Function numerically. The gradient magnitude at which the maximum of the Measurement Function is achieved can be utilized as the most appropriate threshold for gradient-based boundary detection and other operations like volume visualization.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the leading killers worldwide. Lipoprotein and apolipoprotein play an important role in developing CHDs. To tackle the challenging task of CHD lipoprotein and atherosclerotic research, collaborative work is crucial. With an interdiscipline in nature, such research involves bio-chemistry, cardiovascular biology, lipoprotein structure, fluorescent imaging, 3D modelling, data mining, etc. This project aims to create a Web based and integrated solution to support a multi-disciplinary knowledge discovery process for the study of cardiovascular and atherosclerotic biology. The emphasis of the project is to address (1) the sharing of cardiovascular clinical data; and (2) the system integration for CHD cardiovascular research. The system currently under development is mainly implemented on a PC Window platform with an intranet-centric design. An Apache HTTP server, a MySQL SQL server, Perl, and R Language, are employed for the system development independent to hardware platforms. The system offers easy information management and data sharing by multiple parties across Internet. Major datasets include lipoprotein phenotype/genotype and laser confocal images. A user-friendly interface is designed allowing users to deposit, retrieve, visualize and analyze the CHD information from different sites.

It has been reported both experimentally and theoretically that the Ba(2+)-doping at the A-site of quantum paraelectric SrTiO(3) suppresses the quantum fluctuations by activating the ferroelectric mode, while the Ru(4+)-doping at the B-site plays the opposite role. For a double-impurity doped SrTiO(3), i. e., Sr(1-x)Ba(x)Ti(1-y)Ru(y)O(3), where the two types of opposite effects compete with each other, we propose an improved transverse-field Ising model in order to investigate the effect of the double-impurity doping on the quantum phase transitions and critical behaviors. The calculated quantum behavior is quite well consistent with experimental measurements. A linear relationship between the quantum critical doping concentrations for Ba(2+) and Ru(4+) is predicted, subsequently validated qualitatively by an anharmonic oscillator model. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3361080]

Using BamHI digested and dephosphorylated pBR322 as vector, a GL-7-ACA acylase gene from Pseudomonas sp. 130 chromosomal DNA was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli C600. Seven positive clones were detected from 3205 recombinant plasmids with 32P-labeled oligonucleotide probes in situ hybridization. Out of them, three clones which produced active GL-7-ACA acylase were identified by radio-immunological assay, chemical test and chromatographic analysis of reaction mixture. The plasmid DNAs of recombinant pMR5, pMR6 and pMR7 were extracted. Analysis of gel electrophoresis indicated that pMR5 and pMR7 contained the same 6.8kb fragment and the size of the insert in pNR6 was 5.7 kb. The effects of various E. coli hosts on the expression of cloned GL-7-ACA acylase gene is also presented.

A previous paper reported application of L-asparaginase IgG from Vibrio succinogenes in screening for positive clones. This paper describes the detailed procedure for preparation of high-purity IgG, an essential step of which involves coupling of a cell-free extract of host E. coli Y 1090 to Sepharose 4B beads and adsorption of the non-specific antigen components by passage of the polyvalent IgG through this affinity column. The IgG thus obtained exhibited improved specificity and was utilized as a radioimmunologic and horseradish peroxidase-linked immunologic probe in screening for positive clones. These IgG probes had the advantages of low background, high sensitivity, and good reliability.