Haemonchus contortus alters distribution and utilization of protein and amino acids in different tissues of host sheep.

The objective was to determine host animal protein/amino acid redistribution and use among the abomasum, duodenum and muscle of sheep infected with Haemonchus contortus. Sixteen male Ujumqin sheep (32.4 ± 3.9 kg) were dewormed and randomly assigned to two groups, infected or not infected with H. contortus (GIN and CON). The GIN group had lower (P < 0.05) dry matter intake, average daily gain, and live body weight than CON, with extensive focal infiltration of lymphocytes in the lamina propria and bottom of the abomasal epithelium. In the abomasum and duodenum, there were 100 and 220 genes, respectively, that were up-regulated, whereas 56 and 149 were down-regulated. In the abomasum, the most enriched KEGG pathways were related to immunity and inflammation reaction, including: viral protein interaction with cytokine and cytokine receptor (P = 0.017), influenza A (P = 0.030), IL-17 signaling pathway (P = 0.030). In the duodenum, KEGG pathways were more enriched in nutrient metabolism, including pancreatic secretion (P < 0.001), protein digestion and absorption (P < 0.001), graft-versus-host disease (P = 0.004). Furthermore, most genes related with the above KEGG pathways were increased in the abomasum but decreased in the duodenum. Amino acid profiles in abomasum and duodenum of CON and GIN groups were clustered in a partial least-squares discriminant analysis model, with significant changes in 36 and 19 metabolites in abomasal and duodenal chyme, respectively. Further confirmed by transcriptome-targeted metabolome association analysis, GIN mainly enhanced metabolism of arginine and sulphur amino acids in abomasum and those metabolic pathways were associated. Meanwhile, GIN mainly decreased pyruvate related amino acid metabolism in duodenum. Moreover, concentrations of Arg (P = 0.036), His (P = 0.027), and Cys (P = 0.046) in longissimus thoracis et lumborum were decreased in GIN, whereas concentrations of Gly (P = 0.012) and Ala (P = 0.046) were increased. In conclusion, H. contortus enhanced metabolism of arginine and sulphur amino acids in the abomasum; decreased pyruvate metabolism in the duodenum; and drove more protein/amino acids for abomasal tissues to resist physical and immune damage, reducing protein and amino acids in duodenum and muscle for support host growth. Specific nutrients (such like arginine, histidine, and cysteine) may play important role in control gastrointestinal nematode infection for ruminant.

Influence of postruminal casein infusion and exogenous glucagon-like peptide 2 administration on the jejunal mucosal transcriptome in cattle.

We previously demonstrated that postruminal casein infusion and exogenous glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2) administration independently stimulated growth and carbohydrase activity of the pancreas and jejunal mucosa in cattle. The objective of the current study was to profile the jejunal mucosal transcriptome of cattle using next-generation RNA sequencing in response to postruminal casein infusion and exogenous GLP-2. Twenty-four Holstein steers [250 ± 23.1 kg body weight (BW)] received a continuous abomasal infusion of 3.94 g raw corn starch/kg of BW combined with either 0 or 1.30 g casein/kg of BW for 7 d. Steers received subcutaneous injections at 0800 and 2000 h to provide either 0 or 100 µg GLP-2/kg of BW per day. At the end of the 7-d treatment period, steers were slaughtered for collection of the jejunal mucosa. Total RNA was extracted from jejunal mucosal tissue, strand-specific cDNA libraries were prepared, and RNA sequencing was conducted to generate 150-bp paired-end reads at a depth of 40 M reads per sample. Differentially expressed genes (DEG), KEGG pathway enrichment, and gene ontology enrichment were determined based on the FDR-corrected P-value (padj). Exogenous GLP-2 administration upregulated (padj < 0.05) 667 genes and downregulated 1,101 genes of the jejunal mucosa. Sphingolipid metabolism, bile secretion, adherens junction, and galactose metabolism were among the top KEGG pathways enriched with upregulated DEG (padj < 0.05) in response to exogenous GLP-2 administration. The top gene ontologies enriched with upregulated DEG (padj < 0.05) in response to exogenous GLP-2 administration included nutrient metabolic processes, brush border and bicellular tight junction assembly, and enzyme and transporter activities. Exogenous GLP-2 administration increased or tended to increase (padj < 0.10) brush border carbohydrase (MGAM, LCT, TREH), hexose transporter (SLC5A1, SLC2A2), and associated transcription factor (HNF1, GATA4, KAT2B) mRNA expression of the jejunal mucosa. Gene ontologies and KEGG pathways that were downregulated (padj < 0.05) in response to exogenous GLP-2 were related to genetic information processing. Postruminal casein infusion downregulated (padj < 0.05) 7 jejunal mucosal genes that collectively did not result in enriched KEGG pathways or gene ontologies. This study highlights some of the transcriptional mechanisms associated with increased growth, starch assimilation capacity, and barrier function of the jejunal mucosa in response to exogenous GLP-2 administration.

Regulatory effect of Balanites aegyptiaca ethanol extract on oxidant/antioxidant status, inflammatory cytokines, and cell apoptosis gene expression in goat abomasum experimentally infected with Haemonchus Contortus.

This experiment aimed to assess the regulatory effects of treatment with Balanites aegyptiaca fruit ethanol extract (BA-EE) on oxidant/antioxidant status, anti-inflammatory cytokines, and cell apoptosis gene expression in the abomasum of Haemonchus contortus-infected goats. Twenty goat kids were assigned randomly to four equal groups: (G1) infected-untreated, (G2) uninfected-BA-EE-treated, (G3) infected-albendazole-treated, (G4) infected-BA-EE-treated. Each goat in (G1), (G3), and (G4) was orally infected with 10,000 infective third-stage larvae. In the fifth week postinfection, single doses of albendazole (5 mg/kg.BW) and BA-EE (9 g/kg.BW) were given orally. In the ninth week postinfection, the animals were slaughtered to obtain abomasum specimens. The following oxidant/antioxidant markers were determined: malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT). The mRNA gene expression of cytokines (IL-3, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α) and cell apoptosis markers (Bax, Bcl-2) were estimated. (G1) showed significantly reduced GSH content and GST and SOD activities but a markedly increased MDA level. (G3) and (G4) revealed a markedly lower MDA level with pronouncedly elevated GSH, SOD, and GST levels. The antioxidant properties of BA-EE were superior to those of albendazole. The mRNA gene expressions of IL-3, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and Bax-2 were upregulated in (G1) but downregulated in (G3) and (G4). Bcl-2 and Bcl-2/Bax ratio expression followed a reverse course in the infected and both treated groups. We conclude that BA-EE treatment has a protective role in the abomasum of H. contortus-infected goats. This could be attributed to its antioxidant properties and ability to reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines and cell apoptosis.

The expression of intermediate filaments in the abomasum of ruminants: A comparative study.

Intermediate filaments (IFs) are key molecular factors of the cell and have been reported to play an important role in maintaining the structural integrity and functionality of the abomasum. This study was designed to determine the regional distribution, cellular localization and expression of several IFs, including CK8, CK18, CK19, vimentin, desmin, peripherin and nestin, as well as the connective tissue component laminin, in the bovine, ovine and caprine abomasa. Immunohistochemical analyses demonstrated varying levels of expression of CK8, CK18, CK19, vimentin, desmin, nestin, peripherin and laminin in the bovine, ovine and caprine abomasa. CK8 immunoreactions were particularly evident in the luminal and glandular epithelia of the glands found in the abomasal cardia, fundus and pylorus in all three species. In the bovine abomasum, CK18 immunoreactions were stronger in the parietal cells, compared to the chief cells. In the abomasum of all three species, the smooth muscle as well as the smooth muscle cells of the vascular media in the cardiac, fundic and pyloric regions showed strong immunoreactivity. In all three species, the cardiac, fundic and pyloric regions of the abomasum showed strong peripherin and nestin immunoreactions in the luminal and glandular epithelial cells, stromal and smooth muscle cells, nervous plexuses and blood vessels. The expression patterns of IFs and laminin in the ruminant abomasum suggest that these proteins play a structural role in the cytoskeleton and are effective in maintaining abomasal tissue integrity and stability.

Beyond parasitism: Exploring the microbial profile of Haemonchus contortus and its predilection site (abomasum) in Kashmir Merino sheep.

Gastrointestinal helminth infection, particularly by Haemonchus contortus, poses significant challenges to sheep farming worldwide. While anthelmintic drugs have been traditional control measures, the emergence of resistance calls for alternative strategies. Understanding the interaction between parasites, host, and their microbiome is crucial for management of helminth infection. This study intricately explores the interactions between microbial communities in Kashmir Merino sheep infected with H. contortus, to understand the complex interplay between host, parasite, and their microbiome. Sheep abomasal contents and H. contortus were collected from infected and control groups, processed for DNA extraction, and subjected to metagenomic sequencing of the 16 S rRNA gene. Downstream analysis unveils distinct microbial patterns, where Proteobacteria were dominant in H. contortus, while Bacteroidota and Firmicutes prevailed in the sheep abomasum. The revelation of unique genera and shifts in diversity indices underscored helminth-induced disruptions in the host. Beta diversity analysis further showed significant variations in bacterial profiles, providing insights into the intricate host, parasite, and microbiome dynamics. Additionally, this study elucidated the presence of pathogenic bacteria within H. contortus, accentuating their potential role in exacerbating sheep health issues. This finding underscores the complexity of the host-parasite-microbiome interaction showing helminth-induced microbiome alterations of the host.

Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of intravenously and subcutaneously administered pantoprazole in sheep (Ovis aries).

Abomasal ulcers are recognized in sheep of all ages, but research regarding therapeutic interventions is limited. Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) such as pantoprazole, are clinically used with a paucity of evidence regarding efficacy in mature sheep. Intravenous and subcutaneously administered pantoprazole dosed at 1.0 mg/kg in adult sheep will increase the pH of abomasal fluid compared to pre-administration baseline. The objectives were to assess the effect of pantoprazole, after single and multiple administration, on abomasal fluid pH in adult sheep. A third objective was to describe the pharmacokinetic parameters of IV and SC pantoprazole. Four clinically healthy adult Southdown ewes previously fitted with a gastrostomy tube in the abomasum were utilized in this randomized, 2-way cross-over trial. Ewes received pantoprazole (1.0 mg/kg) as a single and 3-dose regimen (every 24 hours). After a 10 day washout period the reverse treatment was applied. Blood for analysis of pantoprazole concentration was collected intermittently for 24 hours, and abomasal fluid pH was measured at intervals for a 96-hour period. The pH of the abomasal fluid was higher in pantoprazole treatments for up to 24 hours after dosing. Following intravenous administration of pantoprazole to study ewes, elimination half-life, volume of distribution, and clearance of pantoprazole was estimated as 3.29 hours, 0.35 L/kg, and 65.26 mL/hr/kg respectively. After subcutaneous dosing, maximum concentration, time to maximum concentration, half-life of elimination, and volume of distribution, were estimated as 2604 ng/mL, 0.55 hours, 2.48 hours, and 0.37 L/kg. Additionally, the bioavailability was estimated as 83.33%. Pantoprazole administered IV or SC may be useful for treatment or prevention of abomasal ulcers in adult sheep.

Liquid-Driven Microinjection System for Precise Fundus Injection.

Microinjection is usually applied to the treatment of some retinal disorders, such as retinal vein cannulation and displaced submacular hemorrhage. Currently, the microinjection procedure is usually performed by using the viscous fluid control of a standard vitrectomy system, which applies a fixed air pressure through foot pedal activation. The injection process with the fixed pressure is uncontrollable and lacks feedback, the high flow rate of the injected drug may cause damage to the fundus tissue. In this paper, a liquid-driven microinjection system with a flow sensor is designed and developed specifically for fundus injection. In addition, a PID sliding mode control (SMC) method is proposed to achieve precise injection in the injection system. The experimental results of fundus simulation injection demonstrate that the microinjection system meets the requirements of fundus injection and reduces the impact of the injection process on the fundus tissue.

Developmental characteristics of aggregated lymphoid nodules area in the abomasum of fetal Bactrian camels (Camelus bactrianus).

BACKGROUND: Bactrian camel is one of the important economic animals in northwest China. They live in arid desert, and their gestation period is about 13 months, which is longer than other ruminants (such as cattle and sheep). The harsh living conditions have made its unique histological characteristics a research focus. Aggregated lymphoid nodules area (ALNA) in the abomasum of Bactrian camels, as one of the most important sites for the induction of the immune response, provide a comprehensive and effective protective role for the organism, and their lack of information will affect the feeding management, reproduction and epidemic prevention of Bactrian camels. In this study, the histological characteristics of the fetal ALNA in the abomasum of Bactrian camels at different developmental gestation have been described by using light microscopy and histology . RESULTS: The ALNA in the abomasum of the Chinese Alashan Bactrian camel is a special immune structure that was first discovered and reported by Wen-hui Wang. To further establish the developmental characteristics of this special structure in the embryonic stage, the abomasum ALNA of 8 fetuses of Alashan Bactrian camels with different gestational ages (5~13 months) were observed and studied by anatomy and histology. The results showed that the aggregation of reticular epithelial cells (RECs) surrounded by a very small number of lymphoid cells was detected for the first time in the abomasum of fetal camel at 5 months gestation, which was presumed to be primitive ALNA. At 7 months gestation, the reticular mucosal folds region (RMFR) appeared, but the longitudinal mucosal folds region (LMFR) was not significant, and histological observations showed that there were diffusely distributed lymphocytes around the RECs. At 10months gestation, RMFR and LMFR were clearly visible, lymphoid follicles appeared in histological observation, lymphocytes proliferated vigorously. By 13 months, the volume of lymphoid follicles increased, forming the subepithelial dome (SED), and there was a primitive interfollicular area between the lymphoid follicles, which contained high endothelial vein (HEV), but no germinal center (GC) was found. In summary, ALNA of Bactrian camels is not fully mature before birth. CONCLUSIONS: Generally, the small intestine PPs of ruminants (such as cattle and sheep) is already mature before birth, while the ALNA in the abomasum of Bactrian camels is not yet mature in the fetal period. During the development of ALNA in Bactrian camel, the development of lymphoid follicles extends from submucosa to Lamina propria. Interestingly, the deformation of FAE changes with age from simple columnar epithelium at the beginning of pregnancy to Simple cuboidal epithelium, which is opposite to the FAE deformation characteristics of PPs in the small intestine of fetal cattle and sheep. These results are the basis of further research on the specificity of ALNA in the abomasum of Bactrian camels.

Vision transformer with masked autoencoders for referable diabetic retinopathy classification based on large-size retina image.

Computer-aided diagnosis systems based on deep learning algorithms have shown potential applications in rapid diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy (DR). Due to the superior performance of Transformer over convolutional neural networks (CNN) on natural images, we attempted to develop a new model to classify referable DR based on a limited number of large-size retinal images by using Transformer. Vision Transformer (ViT) with Masked Autoencoders (MAE) was applied in this study to improve the classification performance of referable DR. We collected over 100,000 publicly fundus retinal images larger than 224×224, and then pre-trained ViT on these retinal images using MAE. The pre-trained ViT was applied to classify referable DR, the performance was also compared with that of ViT pre-trained using ImageNet. The improvement in model classification performance by pre-training with over 100,000 retinal images using MAE is superior to that pre-trained with ImageNet. The accuracy, area under curve (AUC), highest sensitivity and highest specificity of the present model are 93.42%, 0.9853, 0.973 and 0.9539, respectively. This study shows that MAE can provide more flexibility to the input image and substantially reduce the number of images required. Meanwhile, the pretraining dataset scale in this study is much smaller than ImageNet, and the pre-trained weights from ImageNet are not required also.

Mannheimia haemolytica-associated fibrinonecrotizing abomasitis in lambs.

Mannheimia haemolytica-associated abomasitis has been clinically described as a cause of sudden death in lambs, but it is poorly characterized. We describe the pathological features of a severe fibrinonecrotizing abomasitis in 3 lambs that died suddenly. All 3 abomasums had a thickened submucosa due to edema and necrotic areas delimited by bands of degenerate neutrophils with slender nuclei (oat cells) and angiocentric distributions. The overlying mucosa was congested. Myriads of gram-negative coccobacilli were observed within the oat cell bands. M. haemolytica was isolated from the abomasum in all 3 animals and was serotyped as A2 in one of them. Pericarditis and pleuritis were observed in 2 of the lambs. Clostridium spp. were isolated in 1 lamb and detected by immunohistochemistry in the 3 animals, suggesting clostridial co-infection. M. haemolytica should be considered among the differential diagnoses of necrotizing abomasitis in lambs.

Abomasal lesions found in postmortem examination of fattening Holstein-Friesian bulls from central Poland.

The health of the gastrointestinal tract in cattle is one of the factors influencing adequate nutrient absorption and body weight gain. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of lesions found in the abomasum of Polish fattening Holstein-Friesian bulls. A total of 149 abomasa from adult bulls from two voivodeships of central Poland were inspected for pathologicalanatomic position (displacement, volvulus), impaction, mucosal membrane lesions (inflammation, hyperplasia), and signs of parasite infestation(Moroccan leather, worm nodules) in one of the Polish abattoirs just after slaughter. Among all the examined males no lesions were observed in only 8 individuals. The most common findings were erosions (75.8%) and type 1 ulcerations (48.3%) of the body, pylorus, or both locations. Signs of parasite infestations were observed in 78.5% of the inspected animals. Significant differences correlated with age were found in the prevalence of healed ulcers, and between voivodeships in the prevalence of type 2 ulcers. The findings of this study indicate that most fattening bulls in Poland suffer from subclinical forms of abomasa inflammation (both diffuse and focal) and middle-large abomasum parasites invasions, which can influence the economics and profitability, as well as welfare, of livestock production.

[Preclinical diagnostics of von Hippel-Lindau syndrome in a child].

The description of the child aged 5 months with the von Hippel-Lindau syndrome without any manifestations of this syndrome is presented. The reason for the molecular genetic examination was the presence of cases of this syndrome in the family (mother and sister). The heterozygous variant c.355T>C p.F119L was found in the VHL gene. An objective examination revealed no pathology. A comprehensive laboratory and instrumental examination aimed at searching for components of the von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, including a blood test for metanephrines and normetanephrines, ultrasound of the abdominal organs, examination of the fundus, also did not reveal any abnormalities. Given the results of molecular genetic diagnosis, the child remains under observation and will undergo regular examinations to identify components of the von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, including blood/urine tests for normetanephrines.

Functional properties of cream and butter oil from milk of Holstein cows abomasally infused with increasing amounts of high-oleic sunflower fatty acids.

This research paper addresses the hypothesis that there is an optimal amount of intestinally available oleic acid (provided via abomasal infusion) to produce higher-oleic acid milk fat with satisfactory functional characteristics of cream and butter oil. A control and four increasing doses of free fatty acids from high oleic sunflower oil (HOSFA) were infused into the abomasum of four lactating dairy cows in a crossover experimental design with 7-d periods. Treatments were: (1) control (no HOSFA infused), (2) HOSFA (250 g/d), (3) HOSFA (500 g/d), (4) HOSFA (750 g/d), and (5) HOSFA (1000 g/d). All treatments included meat solubles and Tween 80 as emulsifiers. Viscosity, overrun and whipping time as well as foam firmness and stability were evaluated in whipping creams (33% fat). Solid fat content (from 0 to 40°C), melting point and firmness were determined in butter oil. Whipping time of cream increased linearly and viscosity decreased linearly as infusion of HOSFA increased. Overrun displayed a quadratic response, decreasing when 500 g/d or more was infused. Foam firmness and stability were not affected significantly by HOSFA. For butter oil, melting point, firmness, and solid fat content decreased as HOSFA infusion increased. Changes in 21 TG fractions were statistically correlated to functional properties, with 6-10 fractions showing the highest correlations consistently. Decisions on the optimal amount of HOSFA were dependent on the dairy product to which milk fat is applied. For products handled at commercial refrigeration temperatures, such as whipping cream and butter oil, the 250 g/d level was the limit to maintain satisfactory functional qualities. Palmitic acid needed to be present in at least 20% in milk fat to keep the functional properties for the products.

Preliminary study of the effect of low-intensity focused ultrasound on postpartum uterine involution and breast pain in puerperal women: a randomised controlled trial.

To evaluate the safety and efficacy of low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) therapy in facilitating fundus descent and relieving postpartum breast pain compared with sham treatment. A multicentre, randomised, sham-controlled, blinded trial was conducted. A cohort of 176 eligible participants, who had normal prenatal check-ups and met the inclusion and exclusion criteria, were recruited from three medical centres and subsequently randomized into either the LIFU or sham group. All participants received three treatment sessions, wherein LIFU signal was applied to the uterus and breast sites using coupling gel, with the absence of ultrasound signal output in the sham group. Fundal height measurement and breast pain score were performed after each treatment. The primary outcome, uterine involution, was presented by measuring the fundal height of the uterus. The visual analogue scale (VAS) score, as a secondary outcome, was used to assess breast pain and determine the correlation between breast pain and fundal height as the outcome simultaneously. All participants were randomly assigned to either the LIFU group (n = 88) or sham group (n = 88), with seven individuals not completing the treatment. Overall, a statistically significant difference was noted in the rate and index of fundus descent after each treatment. The rate and index of fundus descent showed greater significance following the second treatment (rate: 1.5 (1.0, 2.0) cm/d; index: 0.15 (0.1, 0.18), P < 0.001) and third treatment (rate: 1.67 (1.33, 2.0) cm/d; index: 0.26 (0.23, 0.3), P < 0.001) in the LIFU group. VAS scores, which were based on the continuous variables for the baseline, first, second, and third treatments in the LIFU group (2.0 (2.0, 3.0), 1.0 (0.0, 2.0), 0.0 (0.0, 1.0), and 0.0 (0.0, 0.0) points, respectively), and the sham group (2.0 (2.0, 2.0), 2.0 (1.0, 2.0), 2.0 (1.0, 3.0), and 3.0 (1.0, 3.0) points, respectively), showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups. Meanwhile, the discrepancies in VAS score classification variables between the two groups were statistically significant. After the third treatment, a notable correlation was observed between the VAS score decrease and fundus descent rate; the more the VAS score decreased, the faster was the fundal decline rate in the LIFU group. LIFU therapy is safe and effective, contributing to the acceleration of uterine involution and the relief of postpartum breast pain.Trial ID The study has registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2100049586) at 05/08/2021.

CS-UNet: Cross-scale U-Net with Semantic-position dependencies for retinal vessel segmentation.

Accurate retinal vessel segmentation is the prerequisite for early recognition and treatment of retina-related diseases. However, segmenting retinal vessels is still challenging due to the intricate vessel tree in fundus images, which has a significant number of tiny vessels, low contrast, and lesion interference. For this task, the u-shaped architecture (U-Net) has become the de-facto standard and has achieved considerable success. However, U-Net is a pure convolutional network, which usually shows limitations in global modelling. In this paper, we propose a novel Cross-scale U-Net with Semantic-position Dependencies (CS-UNet) for retinal vessel segmentation. In particular, we first designed a Semantic-position Dependencies Aggregator (SPDA) and incorporate it into each layer of the encoder to better focus on global contextual information by integrating the relationship of semantic and position. To endow the model with the capability of cross-scale interaction, the Cross-scale Relation Refine Module (CSRR) is designed to dynamically select the information associated with the vessels, which helps guide the up-sampling operation. Finally, we have evaluated CS-UNet on three public datasets: DRIVE, CHASE_DB1, and STARE. Compared to most existing state-of-the-art methods, CS-UNet demonstrated better performance.

A High-Resolution Network with Strip Attention for Retinal Vessel Segmentation.

Accurate segmentation of retinal vessels is an essential prerequisite for the subsequent analysis of fundus images. Recently, a number of methods based on deep learning have been proposed and shown to demonstrate promising segmentation performance, especially U-Net and its variants. However, tiny vessels and low-contrast vessels are hard to detect due to the issues of a loss of spatial details caused by consecutive down-sample operations and inadequate fusion of multi-level features caused by vanilla skip connections. To address these issues and enhance the segmentation precision of retinal vessels, we propose a novel high-resolution network with strip attention. Instead of the U-Net-shaped architecture, the proposed network follows an HRNet-shaped architecture as the basic network, learning high-resolution representations throughout the training process. In addition, a strip attention module including a horizontal attention mechanism and a vertical attention mechanism is designed to obtain long-range dependencies in the horizontal and vertical directions by calculating the similarity between each pixel and all pixels in the same row and the same column, respectively. For effective multi-layer feature fusion, we incorporate the strip attention module into the basic network to dynamically guide adjacent hierarchical features. Experimental results on the DRIVE and STARE datasets show that the proposed method can extract more tiny vessels and low-contrast vessels compared with existing mainstream methods, achieving accuracies of 96.16% and 97.08% and sensitivities of 82.68% and 89.36%, respectively. The proposed method has the potential to aid in the analysis of fundus images.

A Straightforward Bifurcation Pattern-Based Fundus Image Registration Method.

Fundus image registration is crucial in eye disease examination, as it enables the alignment of overlapping fundus images, facilitating a comprehensive assessment of conditions like diabetic retinopathy, where a single image's limited field of view might be insufficient. By combining multiple images, the field of view for retinal analysis is extended, and resolution is enhanced through super-resolution imaging. Moreover, this method facilitates patient follow-up through longitudinal studies. This paper proposes a straightforward method for fundus image registration based on bifurcations, which serve as prominent landmarks. The approach aims to establish a baseline for fundus image registration using these landmarks as feature points, addressing the current challenge of validation in this field. The proposed approach involves the use of a robust vascular tree segmentation method to detect feature points within a specified range. The method involves coarse vessel segmentation to analyze patterns in the skeleton of the segmentation foreground, followed by feature description based on the generation of a histogram of oriented gradients and determination of image relation through a transformation matrix. Image blending produces a seamless registered image. Evaluation on the FIRE dataset using registration error as the key parameter for accuracy demonstrates the method's effectiveness. The results show the superior performance of the proposed method compared to other techniques using vessel-based feature extraction or partially based on SURF, achieving an area under the curve of 0.526 for the entire FIRE dataset.

Investigation of gastrointestinal injury-related biomarkers in dairy cattle with displaced abomasum.

BACKGROUND: Displaced abomasum (DA) is one of the most important metabolic disorders of dairy cattle. In DA, ischaemic damage may occur as a result of impaired perfusion due to abomasal displacement, which may result in gastrointestinal mucosal damage. OBJECTIVE: Investigation of gastrointestinal tissue damage in cattle with right displacement of the abomasum (RDA) and left displacement of the abomasum (LDA) using intestinal-related biomarkers. METHODS: Forty-eight DA (24 LDA, 24 RDA) and 15 healthy Holstein dairy cows were enrolled between March 2021 and July 2022. Serum biomarkers including gamma-enteric smooth muscle actin (ACTG-2), liver-fatty acid binding proteins (L-FABP), platelet activating factor (PAF), trefoil factor-3 (TFF-3), leptin, claudin-3 and interleukin-8 (IL-8) concentrations were measured from venous blood samples. RESULTS: L-FABP concentrations in the LDA group and TFF-3 concentrations in the RDA group were lower than in the control group. The leptin concentration of the RDA group was higher than that of the other groups. There was a negative correlation between lactate, leptin and IL-8 concentrations. There was a negative correlation between lactate and TFF-3, whereas leptin and lactate were positively correlated. Leptin was the more reliable biomarker for discriminating between RDA and LDA cases. CONCLUSION: Changes in serum L-FABP, TFF-3 and leptin concentrations in cattle with DA may reflect acute intestinal injury and the subsequent repair phase. However, these biomarkers had poor diagnostic performance in discriminating between healthy and cattle with DA, while leptin emerged as the most useful marker in differentiating LDA from RDA cases.

Deploying efficient net batch normalizations (BNs) for grading diabetic retinopathy severity levels from fundus images.

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the main causes of blindness in people around the world. Early diagnosis and treatment of DR can be accomplished by organizing large regular screening programs. Still, it is difficult to spot diabetic retinopathy timely because the situation might not indicate signs in the primary stages of the disease. Due to a drastic increase in diabetic patients, there is an urgent need for efficient diabetic retinopathy detecting systems. Auto-encoders, sparse coding, and limited Boltzmann machines were used as a few past deep learning (DL) techniques and features for the classification of DR. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have been identified as a promising solution for detecting and classifying DR. We employ the deep learning capabilities of efficient net batch normalization (BNs) pre-trained models to automatically acquire discriminative features from fundus images. However, we successfully achieved F1 scores above 80% on all efficient net BNs in the EYE-PACS dataset (calculated F1 score for DeepDRiD another dataset) and the results are better than previous studies. In this paper, we improved the accuracy and F1 score of the efficient net BNs pre-trained models on the EYE-PACS dataset by applying a Gaussian Smooth filter and data augmentation transforms. Using our proposed technique, we have achieved F1 scores of 84% and 87% for EYE-PACS and DeepDRiD.

Autonomous assessment of spontaneous retinal venous pulsations in fundus videos using a deep learning framework.

The presence or absence of spontaneous retinal venous pulsations (SVP) provides clinically significant insight into the hemodynamic status of the optic nerve head. Reduced SVP amplitudes have been linked to increased intracranial pressure and glaucoma progression. Currently, monitoring for the presence or absence of SVPs is performed subjectively and is highly dependent on trained clinicians. In this study, we developed a novel end-to-end deep model, called U3D-Net, to objectively classify SVPs as present or absent based on retinal fundus videos. The U3D-Net architecture consists of two distinct modules: an optic disc localizer and a classifier. First, a fast attention recurrent residual U-Net model is applied as the optic disc localizer. Then, the localized optic discs are passed on to a deep convolutional network for SVP classification. We trained and tested various time-series classifiers including 3D Inception, 3D Dense-ResNet, 3D ResNet, Long-term Recurrent Convolutional Network, and ConvLSTM. The optic disc localizer achieved a dice score of 95% for locating the optic disc in 30 milliseconds. Amongst the different tested models, the 3D Inception model achieved an accuracy, sensitivity, and F1-Score of 84 ± 5%, 90 ± 8%, and 81 ± 6% respectively, outperforming the other tested models in classifying SVPs. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first study that utilizes a deep neural network for an autonomous and objective classification of SVPs using retinal fundus videos.