Cross-waveband optical computing imaging.

A novel, to the best of our knowledge, cross-spectral optical computing imaging experiment has been achieved through a single exposure of a charge-coupled device. The experimental setup integrates single-pixel imaging (SPI) with ghost imaging (GI) through a photoelectric conversion circuit and a synchronous modulation system. The experimental process involves modulation in one wavelength band (in SPI) and demodulation using the GI algorithm in another. Significantly, our approach utilizes optical computing demodulation, a departure from the conventional electronic demodulation in GI (SPI), which involves the convolution between the bucket optical signals and the modulated patterns on the digital micromirror device. A proof-of-concept cross-band imaging experiment from near-infrared to visible light has been carried out. The results highlight the system's ability to capture images at up to 20 frames per second using near-infrared illumination, which are then reconstructed in the visible light spectrum. This success not only validates the feasibility of our approach but also expands the potential applications in the SPI or GI fields, particularly in scenarios where two-dimensional detector arrays are either unavailable or prohibitively expensive in certain electromagnetic spectra such as x-ray and terahertz.

Optical Encryption Using Attention-Inserted Physics-Driven Single-Pixel Imaging.

Optical encryption based on single-pixel imaging (SPI) has made great advances with the introduction of deep learning. However, the use of deep neural networks usually requires a long training time, and the networks need to be retrained once the target scene changes. With this in mind, we propose an SPI encryption scheme based on an attention-inserted physics-driven neural network. Here, an attention module is used to encrypt the single-pixel measurement value sequences of two images, together with a sequence of cryptographic keys, into a one-dimensional ciphertext signal to complete image encryption. Then, the encrypted signal is fed into a physics-driven neural network for high-fidelity decoding (i.e., decryption). This scheme eliminates the need for pre-training the network and gives more freedom to spatial modulation. Both simulation and experimental results have demonstrated the feasibility and eavesdropping resistance of this scheme. Thus, it will lead SPI-based optical encryption closer to intelligent deep encryption.

Meningeal immunity and neurological diseases: new approaches, new insights.

The meninges, membranes surrounding the central nervous system (CNS) boundary, harbor a diverse array of immunocompetent immune cells, and therefore, serve as an immunologically active site. Meningeal immunity has emerged as a key factor in modulating proper brain function and social behavior, performing constant immune surveillance of the CNS, and participating in several neurological diseases. However, it remains to be determined how meningeal immunity contributes to CNS physiology and pathophysiology. With the advances in single-cell omics, new approaches, such as single-cell technologies, unveiled the details of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying meningeal immunity in CNS homeostasis and dysfunction. These new findings contradict some previous dogmas and shed new light on new possible therapeutic targets. In this review, we focus on the complicated multi-components, powerful meningeal immunosurveillance capability, and its crucial involvement in physiological and neuropathological conditions, as recently revealed by single-cell technologies.

Shared Genetic Architecture between Parkinson's Disease and Brain Structural Phenotypes.

BACKGROUND: Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have consistently demonstrated brain structure abnormalities, indicating the presence of shared etiological and pathological processes between PD and brain structures; however, the genetic relationship remains poorly understood. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the extent of shared genetic architecture between PD and brain structural phenotypes (BSPs) and to identify shared genomic loci. METHODS: We used the summary statistics from genome-wide association studies to conduct MiXeR and conditional/conjunctional false discovery rate analyses to investigate the shared genetic signatures between PD and BSPs. Subsequent expression quantitative trait loci mapping in the human brain and enrichment analyses were also performed. RESULTS: MiXeR analysis identified genetic overlap between PD and various BSPs, including total cortical surface area, average cortical thickness, and specific brain volumetric structures. Further analysis using conditional false discovery rate (FDR) identified 21 novel PD risk loci on associations with BSPs at conditional FDR < 0.01, and the conjunctional FDR analysis demonstrated that PD shared several genomic loci with certain BSPs at conjunctional FDR < 0.05. Among the shared loci, 16 credible mapped genes showed high expression in the brain tissues and were primarily associated with immune function-related biological processes. CONCLUSIONS: We confirmed the polygenic overlap with mixed directions of allelic effects between PD and BSPs and identified multiple shared genomic loci and risk genes, which are likely related to immune-related biological processes. These findings provide insight into the complex genetic architecture associated with PD. © 2023 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Identifying causal genes for migraine by integrating the proteome and transcriptome.

BACKGROUND: While previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified multiple risk variants for migraine, there is a lack of evidence about how these variants contribute to the development of migraine. We employed an integrative pipeline to efficiently transform genetic associations to identify causal genes for migraine. METHODS: We conducted a proteome-wide association study (PWAS) by combining data from the migraine GWAS data with proteomic data from the human brain and plasma to identify proteins that may play a role in the risk of developing migraine. We also combined data from GWAS of migraine with a novel joint-tissue imputation (JTI) prediction model of 17 migraine-related human tissues to conduct transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) together with the fine mapping method FOCUS to identify disease-associated genes. RESULTS: We identified 13 genes in the human brain and plasma proteome that modulate migraine risk by regulating protein abundance. In addition, 62 associated genes not reported in previous migraine TWAS studies were identified by our analysis of migraine using TWAS and fine mapping. Five genes including ICA1L, TREX1, STAT6, UFL1, and B3GNT8 showed significant associations with migraine at both the proteome and transcriptome, these genes are mainly expressed in ependymal cells, neurons, and glial cells, and are potential target genes for prevention of neuronal signaling and inflammatory responses in the pathogenesis of migraine. CONCLUSIONS: Our proteomic and transcriptome findings have identified disease-associated genes that may give new insights into the pathogenesis and potential therapeutic targets for migraine.

Genetic analysis of the ATP11B gene in Chinese Han population with cerebral small vessel disease.

BACKGROUND: A loss-of-function mutation in ATPase phospholipid transporting 11-B (putative) (ATP11B) gene causing cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) in vivo, and a single intronic nucleotide polymorphism in ATP11B: rs148771930 that was associated with white matter hyperintensities burden in European patients with SVD, was recently identified. Our results suggest that ATP11B may not play an essential role in SVD in the Chinese population. RESULTS: We performed target region sequencing including ATP11B gene in 182 patients with sporadic SVD, and identified five rare variants and two novel variants of ATP11B. A case-control study was then performed in 524 patients and matched 550 controls to investigate the relationship between ATP11B and sporadic SVD in the Chinese Han population. Although none of these variants were significantly associated with SVD in our samples, it is important to mention that we identified a novel variant, p. G238W, which was predicted to be pathogenic in silico. This variant was present in our cohort of patients with an extremely low frequency and was absent in the controls. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that ATP11B may not play an essential role in SVD in the Chinese population.

CT Hyperdense Artery Sign and the Effect of Alteplase in Endovascular Thrombectomy after Acute Stroke.

Background Recent evidence suggests that presence of an intracranial arterial thrombus with a hyperdense artery sign (HAS) at noncontrast CT (NCCT) is associated with better response to intravenous alteplase. Patients with HAS may benefit more from combined intravenous alteplase and endovascular treatment (EVT). Purpose To investigate whether HAS at NCCT modifies the treatment effect of adding intravenous alteplase on clinical outcome in patients with acute large-vessel occlusion undergoing EVT. Materials and Methods This study is a secondary analysis of a prospective randomized trial (Direct Intra-arterial thrombectomy in order to Revascularize AIS patients with large-vessel occlusion Efficiently in Chinese Tertiary hospitals: A Multicenter randomized clinical Trial [DIRECT-MT]), which compared adding alteplase to EVT versus EVT alone in participants with acute large-vessel occlusion between February 2018 and July 2019. Participants with catheter angiograms and adequate NCCT for HAS evaluation were included. HAS was determined visually by two independent investigators at baseline NCCT. Treatment effect of intravenous alteplase administration according to presence of HAS on the primary clinical outcome (modified Rankin Scale [mRS] score at 90 days) and secondary and safety outcomes were assessed using adjusted multivariable regression models. Results Among 633 included participants (356 men [56%]; median age, 69 years), HAS was observed in 283 participants (45%): 142 of 313 participants (45%) in the EVT-only group and 141 of 320 participants (44%) in the group with added intravenous alteplase. Treatment-by-HAS interaction was observed for the primary outcome (P < .001), whereby a shift in favor of better outcomes with added intravenous alteplase occurred in participants with HAS (adjusted odds ratio [OR]: 1.82; 95% CI: 1.18, 2.79), while an adverse effect was seen in participants without HAS (adjusted OR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.42, 0.91). This also held true for three secondary outcomes (excellent outcome [mRS score of 0-1 at 90 days], P = .005; good outcome [mRS score of 0-2 at 90 days], P = .008; final successful reperfusion, P = .04) in the adjusted models. Conclusion After acute ischemic stroke, presence of hyperdense artery sign (HAS) at baseline noncontrast CT indicated better outcomes when alteplase was added to endovascular treatment, but adding alteplase to endovascular treatment resulted in worse outcomes in participants without HAS. Clinical trial registration no. NCT03469206 © RSNA, 2022 Online supplemental material is available for this article.

S3I-201 derivative incorporating naphthoquinone unit as effective STAT3 inhibitors: Design, synthesis and anti-gastric cancer evaluation.

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is a key regulator of many human cancers and has been widely recognized as a promising target for cancer therapy. A variety of small-molecule inhibitors have been developed for targeting STAT3, and some of them are now undergoing clinical trials. S3I-201, a known STAT3 inhibitor, may block STAT3 function in cancer cells by binding to the STAT3 SH2 domain to disrupt STAT3 protein complex formation. Using S3I-201 as a starting point for drug development, we synthesized a series of new STAT3 inhibitors 9a-x in this study by introducing naphthoquinone unit, a privileged fragment in STAT3 inhibitors. Most of the compounds exhibited strong anti-proliferation activity of gastric cancer cells (MGC803, MKN28, MNK1, and AGS). The representative compound 9n (SIL-14) could effectively inhibit the colony formation and migration of gastric cancer cells MGC803, arrest the cell cycle and induce MGC803 cell apoptosis at low micromolar concentrations in vitro. In addition, SIL-14 can also inhibit the phosphorylation of STAT3 protein and significantly decrease the expression of total STAT3, suggesting that it may exert anticancer effects by blocking the STAT3 signaling pathway. These results support that SIL-14 may be a promising STAT3 inhibitor for the further development of potential anti-gastric cancer candidates.

Discovery of benzochalcone derivative as a potential antigastric cancer agent targeting signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3).

Gastric cancer remains a significant health burden worldwide. In continuation of our previous study and development of effective small molecules against gastric cancer, a series of benzochalcone analogues involving heterocyclic molecules were synthesised and biologically evaluated in vitro and in vivo. Among them, the quinolin-6-yl substituted derivative KL-6 inhibited the growth of gastric cancer cells (HGC27, MKN28, AZ521, AGS, and MKN1) with a submicromolar to micromolar range of IC50, being the most potent one in this series. Additionally, KL-6 significantly inhibited the colony formation, migration and invasion, and effectively induced apoptosis of MKN1 cells in a concentration-dependent manner. The mechanistic study revealed that KL-6 could concentration-dependently suppress STAT3 phosphorylation, which may partly contribute to its anticancer activity. Furthermore, in vivo antitumour study on the MKN1 orthotopic tumour model showed that KL-6 effectively inhibited tumour growth (TGI of 78%) and metastasis without obvious toxicity. Collectively, compound KL-6 may support the further development of candidates for gastric cancer treatment.

Multi-Party Cryptographic Key Distribution Protocol over a Public Network Based on a Quick-Response Code.

In existing cryptographic key distribution (CKD) protocols based on computational ghost imaging (CGI), the interaction among multiple legitimate users is generally neglected, and the channel noise has a serious impact on the performance. To overcome these shortcomings, we propose a multi-party interactive CKD protocol over a public network, which takes advantage of the cascade ablation of fragment patterns (FPs). The server splits a quick-response (QR) code image into multiple FPs and embeds different "watermark" labels into these FPs. By using a CGI setup, the server will acquire a series of bucket value sequences with respect to different FPs and send them to multiple legitimate users through a public network. The users reconstruct the FPs and determine whether there is an attack in the public channel according to the content of the recovered "watermark" labels, so as to complete the self-authentication. Finally, these users can extract their cryptographic keys by scanning the QR code (the cascade ablation result of FPs) returned by an intermediary. Both simulation and experimental results have verified the feasibility of this protocol. The impacts of different attacks and the noise robustness have also been investigated.

Secondary Complementary Balancing Compressive Imaging with a Free-Space Balanced Amplified Photodetector.

Single-pixel imaging (SPI) has attracted widespread attention because it generally uses a non-pixelated photodetector and a digital micromirror device (DMD) to acquire the object image. Since the modulated patterns seen from two reflection directions of the DMD are naturally complementary, one can apply complementary balanced measurements to greatly improve the measurement signal-to-noise ratio and reconstruction quality. However, the balance between two reflection arms significantly determines the quality of differential measurements. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a simple secondary complementary balancing mechanism to minimize the impact of the imbalance on the imaging system. In our SPI setup, we used a silicon free-space balanced amplified photodetector with 5 mm active diameter which could directly output the difference between two optical input signals in two reflection arms. Both simulation and experimental results have demonstrated that the use of secondary complementary balancing can result in a better cancellation of direct current components of measurements, and can acquire an image quality slightly better than that of single-arm single-pixel complementary measurement scheme (which is free from the trouble of optical imbalance) and over 20 times better than that of double-arm dual-pixel complementary measurement scheme under optical imbalance conditions.

Gradient-Descent-like Ghost Imaging.

Ghost imaging is an indirect optical imaging technique, which retrieves object information by calculating the intensity correlation between reference and bucket signals. However, in existing correlation functions, a high number of measurements is required to acquire a satisfied performance, and the increase in measurement number only leads to limited improvement in image quality. Here, inspired by the gradient descent idea that is widely used in artificial intelligence, we propose a gradient-descent-like ghost imaging method to recursively move towards the optimal solution of the preset objective function, which can efficiently reconstruct high-quality images. The feasibility of this technique has been demonstrated in both numerical simulation and optical experiments, where the image quality is greatly improved within finite steps. Since the correlation function in the iterative formula is replaceable, this technique offers more possibilities for image reconstruction of ghost imaging.

Pseudo-thermal imaging by using sequential-deviations for real-time image reconstruction.

Ghost imaging technologies acquire images through intensity correlation of reference patterns and bucket values. Among them, an interesting method named correspondence imaging can generate positive-negative images by only conditionally averaging reference patterns, but still requires full/over sampling to treat the ensemble average of bucket values as a selection criteria, causing a long acquisition time. Here, we propose a sequential-deviation ghost imaging approach, which can realize real-time reconstructions of positive-negative images with a high image quality close to that of differential ghost imaging. Since it is no longer necessary to compare with the ensemble average, this method can improve the real-time performance. An explanation of its essence is also given here. Both simulation and experimental results have demonstrated the feasibility of this technique. This work may complement the theory of ghost imaging.

Cryptographic key distribution over a public network via variance-based watermarking in compressive measurements.

Optical communication has an increasing need for security in public transmission scenarios. Here, we present a protocol for cryptographic key distribution over a public network via a photon-counting compressive imaging system with watermarking, which utilizes a watermarking technique to distribute secure keys, and uses reconstructed images for simultaneous identity authentication and tampering identification. The watermark is embedded in the rearranged compressed measurements of the object, and then the signal is transmitted through a public network. At the receiving terminal, legitimate users can easily extract the watermark as the cryptographic key by using initial keys and the variance characteristic of random measurements. Artificial tampering and attacks can be detected by accurately retrieved images. The realization of this protocol is a step forward toward practical applications, and will be beneficial for the broader fields of optical security in many ways.

Super Sub-Nyquist Single-Pixel Imaging by Means of Cake-Cutting Hadamard Basis Sort.

Single-pixel imaging via compressed sensing can reconstruct high-quality images from a few linear random measurements of an object known a priori to be sparse or compressive, by using a point/bucket detector without spatial resolution. Nevertheless, random measurements still have blindness, limiting the sampling ratios and leading to a harsh trade-off between the acquisition time and the spatial resolution. Here, we present a new compressive imaging approach by using a strategy we call cake-cutting, which can optimally reorder the deterministic Hadamard basis. The proposed method is capable of recovering images of large pixel-size with dramatically reduced sampling ratios, realizing super sub-Nyquist sampling and significantly decreasing the acquisition time. Furthermore, such kind of sorting strategy can be easily combined with the structured characteristic of the Hadamard matrix to accelerate the computational process and to simultaneously reduce the memory consumption of the matrix storage. With the help of differential modulation/measurement technology, we demonstrate this method with a single-photon single-pixel camera under the ulta-weak light condition and retrieve clear images through partially obscuring scenes. Thus, this method complements the present single-pixel imaging approaches and can be applied to many fields.

Single-Pixel Imaging with Origami Pattern Construction.

Single-pixel compressive imaging can recover images from fewer measurements, offering many benefits especially for the imaging modalities where array detection is unavailable. However, the widely used random projections fail to explore internal relations between coding patterns and image reconstruction. Here, we propose a single-pixel imaging method based on a deterministic origami pattern construction that can lead to a more accurate pattern ordering sequence and better imaging quality. It can decrease the sampling ratio, closer to the upper bounds. The experimental realization of this approach is a big step forward towards practical applications.

Reduced airway microbiota diversity is associated with elevated allergic respiratory inflammation.

BACKGROUND: An increased prevalence of allergic disorders in developed countries has been associated with decreased exposure to environmental micro-organisms and an alteration of microbiota colonization. An appropriate model is needed to investigate the mechanisms by which hygiene environment-driven changes in microbiota could regulate allergic disorders. OBJECTIVE: To discover the correlation between the higher incidence and severity of allergies with the relative hygiene environment in a developed country. METHODS: Allergic respiratory inflammation was induced in specific pathogen-free and control rats by sensitization and challenge with ovalbumin. The diversity of lower airway bacteria community was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and sequencing before ovalbumin sensitization. Allergic respiratory inflammation resulting in cellular infiltrate was measured after the last challenge. RESULTS: The diversity of microbiota in the airway of specific pathogen-free rats decreased compared with the control rats; the more frequent microbiota in the control rats were Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. In addition, increased nasal rubbing and sneezing combined with exaggerated IgE production and leukocyte number was observed in ovalbumin-treated specific pathogen-free rats. CONCLUSION: These data indicate that the excessive "hygienic" environment resulted in a decreased bacterial diversity in the airway during infancy, leading to an increased susceptibility to allergic disease.

Evaluation criterion of thermal light ghost imaging based on the receiver operating characteristic analysis.

The performances of different thermal ghost imaging (GI) algorithms are compared in an experiment of computational GI using a digital micromirror device. Here we present a rather different evaluation criterion named receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis that serves as the performance of merit for the quantitative comparison. A ROC curve is created by plotting the true positive rate against the false positive rate at various threshold settings. Both theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that the ROC curve and the area under the curve are better and more intuitive indicators of the performance of the GI, compared with conventional evaluation methods. Additionally, for examining gray-scale objects, the calculation of the volume under the ROC surface is analyzed and serves as a performance metric. Our scheme should attract general interest and open exciting prospects for ROC analysis in thermal GI.

Iterative denoising of ghost imaging.

We present a new technique to denoise ghost imaging (GI) in which conventional intensity correlation GI and an iteration process have been combined to give an accurate estimate of the actual noise affecting image quality. The blurring influence of the speckle areas in the beam is reduced in the iteration by setting a threshold. It is shown that with an appropriate choice of threshold value, the quality of the iterative GI reconstructed image is much better than that of differential GI for the same number of measurements. This denoising method thus offers a very effective approach to promote the implementation of GI in real applications.

Adaptive compressive ghost imaging based on wavelet trees and sparse representation.

Compressed sensing is a theory which can reconstruct an image almost perfectly with only a few measurements by finding its sparsest representation. However, the computation time consumed for large images may be a few hours or more. In this work, we both theoretically and experimentally demonstrate a method that combines the advantages of both adaptive computational ghost imaging and compressed sensing, which we call adaptive compressive ghost imaging, whereby both the reconstruction time and measurements required for any image size can be significantly reduced. The technique can be used to improve the performance of all computational ghost imaging protocols, especially when measuring ultra-weak or noisy signals, and can be extended to imaging applications at any wavelength.