RCRFNet: Enhancing Object Detection with Self-Supervised Radar-Camera Fusion and Open-Set Recognition.

Robust object detection in complex environments, poor visual conditions, and open scenarios presents significant technical challenges in autonomous driving. These challenges necessitate the development of advanced fusion methods for millimeter-wave (mmWave) radar point cloud data and visual images. To address these issues, this paper proposes a radar-camera robust fusion network (RCRFNet), which leverages self-supervised learning and open-set recognition to effectively utilise the complementary information from both sensors. Specifically, the network uses matched radar-camera data through a frustum association approach to generate self-supervised signals, enhancing network training. The integration of global and local depth consistencies between radar point clouds and visual images, along with image features, helps construct object class confidence levels for detecting unknown targets. Additionally, these techniques are combined with a multi-layer feature extraction backbone and a multimodal feature detection head to achieve robust object detection. Experiments on the nuScenes public dataset demonstrate that RCRFNet outperforms state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods, particularly in conditions of low visual visibility and when detecting unknown class objects.

Regioselective Cycloaddition of Alkenes with tert-butyl Nitrite: A Cascade Approach to the Formation of Δ2-Isoxazolines.

A route for cycloaddition reaction of alkenes and tert-butyl nitrite to synthesize Δ2-isoxazolines has been developed. The overall process involves the formation of multiple chemical bonds without the use of a catalyst. This methodology features mild reaction conditions and good functional group tolerance, providing a direct approach for the preparation of isoxazolines.

Electrochemical Phenyl-Carbonyl Coupling Reaction of Aromatic Aldehydes or Ketones.

An electrochemical phenyl-carbonyl coupling reaction of aromatic aldehydes or ketones to synthesize 4-(hydroxy(phenyl)methyl)benzaldehyde derivatives has been developed. The method shows high chemoselectivity, broad functional group compatibility, atom economy, and environmental benignity and has good potential applicability.

Thoracic perivascular adipose tissue inhibits VSMC apoptosis and aortic aneurysm formation in mice via the secretome of browning adipocytes.

Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a dangerous vascular disease without any effective drug therapies so far. Emerging evidence suggests the phenotypic differences in perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) between regions of the aorta are implicated in the development of atherosclerosis evidenced by the abdominal aorta more vulnerable to atherosclerosis than the thoracic aorta in large animals and humans. The prevalence of thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAA) is much less than that of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA). In this study we investigated the effect of thoracic PVAT (T-PVAT) transplantation on aortic aneurysm formation and the impact of T-PVAT on vascular smooth muscle cells. Calcium phosphate-induced mouse AAA model was established. T-PVAT (20 mg) was implanted around the abdominal aorta of recipient mice after removal of endogenous abdominal PVAT (A-PVAT) and calcium phosphate treatment. Mice were sacrificed two weeks after the surgery and the maximum external diameter of infrarenal aorta was measured. We found that T-PVAT displayed a more BAT-like phenotype than A-PVAT; transplantation of T-PVAT significantly attenuated calcium phosphate-induced abdominal aortic dilation and elastic degradation as compared to sham control or A-PVAT transplantation. In addition, T-PVAT transplantation largely preserved smooth muscle cell content in the abdominal aortic wall. Co-culture of T-PVAT with vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) significantly inhibited H2O2- or TNFα plus cycloheximide-induced VSMC apoptosis. RNA sequencing analysis showed that T-PVAT was enriched by browning adipocytes and anti-apoptotic secretory proteins. We further verified that the secretome of mature adipocytes isolated from T-PVAT significantly inhibited H2O2- or TNFα plus cycloheximide-induced VSMC apoptosis. Using proteomic and bioinformatic analyses we identified cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) as a secreted protein significantly increased in T-PVAT. Recombinant COMP protein significantly inhibited VSMC apoptosis. We conclude that T-PVAT exerts anti-apoptosis effect on VSMCs and attenuates AAA formation, which is possibly attributed to the secretome of browning adipocytes.

Age at job initiation and risk of coronary heart disease: findings from the UK biobank cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Commencing work at an early age has been linked to various risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD), such as shift work and intensive job strain. However, the relationship between starting work too early and CHD risk remains largely unclear. We examined the association between age at job initiation and the risk of CHD. METHODS: UK Biobank participants aged 38 to 70 years without cardiovascular disease who provided data on their age at job initiation were included. The primary outcome was CHD, which was ascertained using hospital and death records. The hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence interval (CIs) for the association between age at job initiation and CHD were calculated using multivariable Cox regression. RESULTS: Of the 501,971 participants, 114,418 eligible participants were included in the final analysis. The median age at job initiation was 19.0 years. During the mean follow-up of 12.6 years, 6,130 (5.4%) first CHD events occurred. We observed that age at job initiation was inversely associated with CHD (HR 0.98, 95% CI 0.97-0.99), and the association was potentially J-shaped. The HRs for the < 17-year, 17-18-year, and 19-21-year age groups were 1.29 (95%CI 1.18-1.41), 1.12 (95% CI 1.03-1.22) and 1.05 (95% CI 0.97-1.14), respectively, compared with those of the ≥ 22-year group. CONCLUSIONS: Age at job initiation was associated with incident CHD, which was independent of socioeconomic status. Participants who commenced employment before the age of 19 years exhibited a higher risk of developing CHD later in adulthood.

Tandem Reduction, Ammonolysis, Condensation, and Deamination Reaction for Synthesis of Benzothiadiazines and 1-(Phenylsulfonyl)-1H-benzimidazoles.

A novel route for a SnCl2-promoted tandem reduction, ammonolysis, condensation, and deamination reaction which uses nitrile and 2-nitro-N-phenylbenzenesulfonamide/N-(2-nitrophenyl)benzenesulfonamide to synthesize derivatives of benzothiadiazine/1-(phenylsulfonyl)-1H-benzimidazole has been developed. The method features convenient operation and good functional group tolerance. In addition, it employs unsensitive and inexpensive SnCl2/i-PrOH as the reaction reagent and provides a direct approach for the synthesis of pharmaceutically important targets.

Colchicine Inhibits NETs and Alleviates Cardiac Remodeling after Acute Myocardial Infarction.

PURPOSE: Colchicine, a multipotent anti-inflammatory drug, has been reported to alleviate cardiac remodeling and improve cardiac function after acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, the underlying mechanism remains incompletely understood. Because neutrophils extracellular traps (NETs) enhance inflammation and participate in myocardial ischemia injury, and colchicine can inhibit NETosis, we thus aimed to determine whether colchicine exerts cardioprotective effects on AMI via suppressing NETs. METHODS: Adult C57BL/6 mice were subjected to permanent ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery and treated with colchicine (0.1 mg/kg/day) or Cl-amidine (10 mg/kg/day) for 7 or 28 days after AMI. Cardiac function was evaluated by echocardiography, and NETs detected by immunofluorescence. ROS production was detected using 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetates (DCFH-DA) fluorometry. Intracellular Ca2+ concentration was assessed by a fluorometric ratio technique. RESULTS: We found that colchicine treatment significantly increased mice survival (89.8% in the colchicine group versus 67.9% in control, n = 32 per group; log-rank test, p < 0.05) and improved cardiac function at day 7 (left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF): 28.0 ± 9.2% versus 12.6 ± 3.9%, n = 8 per group; p < 0.001) and at day 28 (LVEF: 26.2 ± 7.2% versus 14.8 ± 6.7%, n = 8 per group; p < 0.001) post-AMI. In addition, the administration of colchicine inhibited NETs formation and inflammation. Furthermore, colchicine inhibited NETs formation by reducing NOX2/ROS production and Ca2+ influx. Moreover, prevention of NETs formation with Cl-amidine significantly alleviated AMI-induced cardiac remodeling. CONCLUSIONS: Colchicine inhibited NETs and cardiac inflammation, and alleviated cardiac remodeling after acute myocardial infarction.

Inverse synthetic aperture ladar imaging based on modified cubic phase function.

Inverse synthetic aperture imaging ladar (ISAL) can achieve high-resolution images, and yet it faces pulse-to-pulse high-order phase errors that the microwave radar can ignore. The high-order phase errors are almost caused by mechanical vibrations in general, which blur the azimuth focusing effect. This paper presents an ISAL imaging model to obtain high-resolution images. A novel modified cubic phase function (CPF) algorithm is proposed to compensate the additional high-order phase errors. Some high-resolution well-focused ISAL simulation images and real target images are shown to validate the methods. It is shown that the third-order phase errors are compensated by the distinctive digital signal process and the image entropy of real target images is reduced significantly.

Estimation and correction of vibration-induced range cell migration for FMCW synthetic aperture ladar.

Synthetic aperture ladar (SAL) is a newly developed imaging device for remote sensing application. Owing to its short wavelength (3-5 orders of magnitude shorter than radar), SAL is very sensitive to platform vibration. For frequency-modulated continuous-wave SAL (FMCW-SAL), the platform vibration induces an additional range cell migration (RCM) to the SAL image. The vibration-induced RCM (VI-RCM) deteriorates the image quality. The VI-RCM is a unique problem for the FMCW-SAL imaging. To address this problem, a raw-data-driven method is proposed to correct the VI-RCM in this paper. First, the signal model was developed to show the VI-RCM in FMCW-SAL echo. Then, based on the model, the differential phase function (DPF) is constructed for the adjacent range profiles. The DPF is a single-frequency signal with its frequency being proportional to the relative range shift between the adjacent range profiles. Based on the DPF, the relative range shift is estimated. After the estimation of all the relative range shifts, the VI-RCM is calculated and corrected. Experiments are performed. The simulated experiment demonstrated the feasibility, accuracy, and efficiency of the proposed method, and the real data processing result verified the effectiveness of the proposed method for FMCW-SAL in practical applications.

Combined Experimental and Molecular Simulation Investigation of the Individual Effects of Corexit Surfactants on the Aerosolization of Oil Spill Matter.

We report laboratory aerosolization experiments and classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, with the objective of investigating the individual effects of the two Corexit surfactants Span 80 (nonionic) and dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (DOSS, ionic), on the aerosolization of oil spill matter to the atmosphere. Our simulation results show that Span 80, DOSS, and the oil alkanes n-pentadecane (C15) and n-triacontane (C30) exhibit deep free energy minima at the air/seawater interface. C15 and C30 exhibit deeper free energy minima at the interface when Span 80 is present, as compared to the situation when DOSS or no surfactants are at the interface. These results suggest that Span 80 makes these oil hydrocarbons more likely to be adsorbed at the surface of seawater droplets and carried out to the atmosphere, relative to DOSS or to the situation where no surfactants are present. These simulation trends are in qualitative agreement with our experimental observations in a bubble-column setup, where larger amounts of oil hydrocarbons are ejected when Span 80 is mixed with oil and injected into the column, as compared to when DOSS is used. Our simulations also indicate that Span 80 has a larger thermodynamic incentive than DOSS to move from the seawater phase and into the air/seawater interface. This observation is also in qualitative agreement with our experimental measurements, which indicate that Span 80 is ejected in larger quantities than DOSS. Our simulations also suggest that DOSS predominantly adopts a perpendicular orientation with respect to the air/seawater interface at a dispersant to oil ratio (DOR) of 1:20, but has a slight preference to lie parallel to the interfaces at a DOR = 1:5; in both cases, DOSS molecules have their tails wide open and stretched. In contrast, Span 80 has a slight preference to align parallel to the interfaces with a coiled conformation at both DOR values.

SCANeXt: Enhancing 3D medical image segmentation with dual attention network and depth-wise convolution.

Existing approaches to 3D medical image segmentation can be generally categorized into convolution-based or transformer-based methods. While convolutional neural networks (CNNs) demonstrate proficiency in extracting local features, they encounter challenges in capturing global representations. In contrast, the consecutive self-attention modules present in vision transformers excel at capturing long-range dependencies and achieving an expanded receptive field. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, termed SCANeXt, for 3D medical image segmentation. Our method combines the strengths of dual attention (Spatial and Channel Attention) and ConvNeXt to enhance representation learning for 3D medical images. In particular, we propose a novel self-attention mechanism crafted to encompass spatial and channel relationships throughout the entire feature dimension. To further extract multiscale features, we introduce a depth-wise convolution block inspired by ConvNeXt after the dual attention block. Extensive evaluations on three benchmark datasets, namely Synapse, BraTS, and ACDC, demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method in terms of accuracy. Our SCANeXt model achieves a state-of-the-art result with a Dice Similarity Score of 95.18% on the ACDC dataset, significantly outperforming current methods.

Inhibition of ER stress using tauroursodeoxycholic acid rescues obesity-evoked cardiac remodeling and contractile anomalies through regulation of ferroptosis.

Interrupted ER homeostasis contributes to the etiology of obesity cardiomyopathy although it remains elusive how ER stress evokes cardiac anomalies in obesity. Our study evaluated the impact of ER stress inhibition on cardiac anomalies in obesity. Lean and ob/ob obese mice received chemical ER chaperone tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA, 50 mg/kg/d, p.o.) for 35 days prior to evaluation of glucose sensitivity, echocardiographic, myocardial geometric, cardiomyocyte mechanical and subcellular Ca2+ property, mitochondrial integrity, oxidative stress, apoptosis, and ferroptosis. Intracellular Ca2+ governing domains including sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA) were monitored by45Ca2+uptake and immunoblotting. Our results noted that TUDCA alleviated myocardial remodeling (fibrosis, hypertrophy, enlarged LVESD), echocardiographic anomalies (compromised fractional shortening and ejection fraction), cardiomyocyte contractile dysfunction (amplitude and velocity of cell shortening, relengthening time) and intracellular Ca2+ anomalies (compromised subcellular Ca2+ release, clearance and SERCA function), mitochondrial damage (collapsed membrane potential, downregulated mitochondrial elements and ultrastructural alteration), ER stress (GRP78, eIF2α and ATF4), oxidative stress, apoptosis and ferroptosis [downregulated SLC7A11, GPx4 and upregulated transferrin receptor (TFRC)] without affecting global glucose sensitivity and serum Fe2+ in obese mice. Obesity-evoked change in HSP90, phospholamban and Na+-Ca2+ exchanger was spared by the chemical ER chaperone. Moreover, in vitro results noted that TUDCA, PERK inhibitor GSK2606414, TFRC neutralizing antibody and ferroptosis inhibitor LIP1 mitigated palmitic acid-elicited changes in lipid peroxidation and mechanical function. Our findings favored a role for ferroptosis in obesity cardiomyopathy downstream of ER stress.

Predictive value of NT pro BNP for new-onset atrial fibrillation in heart failure and preserved ejection fraction.

AIMS: The prognostic significance of N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) has been well established. HFpEF and atrial fibrillation (AF) commonly coexist, and each contributes to poor outcomes independently. Nevertheless, the ability of NT-proBNP to predict AF in HFpEF patients remains uncertain. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 367 HFpEF patients without baseline AF from the Treatment of Preserved Cardiac Function Heart Failure with an Aldosterone Antagonist (TOPCAT) trial were included. The Cox proportional hazard model was used to assess the association of NT-proBNP with the risk of AF. The C-statistic, categorical net reclassification index (NRI), and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) were used to evaluate the ability of NT-proBNP in new-onset AF prediction. During a median follow-up of 2.91 years, 17 (4.63%) new-onset AF cases occurred. Every 1000 pg/mL increase in NT-proBNP was associated with a 16% increase in the risk of AF occurrence after adjustments (hazard ratio, 1.16 [95% CI, 1.02-1.32]). NT-proBNP showed a moderate performance for new-onset AF at 3 years (C-statistic, 0.67). Adding NT-proBNP to CHADS2/R2CHADS2/CHA2DS2-VASc/C2HSET scores improved their predictive performance for AF risk (CHADS2: C-statistic, 0.63, CHADS2+NT: C-statistic, 0.69, NRI, 47.46%, IDI, 1.18%; R2CHADS2: C-statistic, 0.65, R2CHADS2+NT: C-statistic, 0.70, NRI, 48.03%, IDI, 0.51%; CHA2DS2-VASc: C-statistic, 0.67, CHA2DS2-VASc+NT: C-statistic, 0.72, NRI, 49.41%, IDI, 0.86%; C2HSET: C-statistic, 0.77, C2HSET+NT: C-statistic, 0.80, NRI, 50.32%, IDI, 1.58%). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with HFpEF, the NT-proBNP level was positively associated with the incidence of new-onset AF and may be a promising predictor.

Predictors of in-hospital heart failure in patients with acute anterior wall ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND: Heart failure (HF) is a severe complication of acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Its incidence is associated with myocardial infarction location, and it occurs frequently after acute anterior wall STEMI due to the larger infarct size. However, predictors of in-hospital HF in patients with acute anterior wall STEMI are inadequately defined. We aimed to determine potential predictors of HF in patients with acute anterior wall STEMI during hospitalization. METHODS: A total of 714 consecutive patients who were diagnosed with acute anterior wall STEMI and underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention (pPCI) between January 2013 to August 2019 were enrolled retrospectively. We assigned the patients to HF and non-HF groups. The clinical parameters were subjected to univariate analysis and logistic regression analysis to obtain the independent predictors. RESULTS: Among the 714 patients enrolled in the present study (mean age 61.0 ± 13.8 years, men 80.7%), 387 (54.2%) had in-hospital HF. According to a multivariate logistic regression analysis, ventricular fibrillation (VF, OR: 5.66, 95% CI: 2.25-14.23, P < 0.001) was the most striking independent predictor of in-hospital HF. Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP, OR: 4.72, 95% CI: 2.44-9.10, P < 0.001), age (OR: 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01-1.04, P < 0.001), left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF, OR: 0.96, 95% CI: 0.93-0.97, P < 0.001), and peak N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-pro-BNP, OR: 1.06, 95% CI: 1.02-1.11, P = 0.006) were also independently associated with in-hospital HF. CONCLUSION: VF, CAP, age, LVEF, and peak NT-pro-BNP were independently associated with in-hospital HF in patients with acute anterior wall STEMI.

Regional innovation effect of smart city construction in China.

Innovation is an important driving force for high-quality regional economic development. In recent years, the Chinese government has actively explored new ways to improve regional innovation level, and the construction of smart cities is regarded as an important measure to implement the innovation-driven development strategy. Based on the panel data of 287 prefecture-level cities in China from 2001 to 2019, this paper examined the impact of smart city construction on regional innovation. The research shows that: (i) The construction of smart city has significantly improved the level of regional innovation; (ii) Investment in science and technology and human capital level are important transmission paths for smart city construction to affect regional innovation; (iii) Compared with the central and western regions, the impact of smart city construction on regional innovation is more obvious in the eastern region. This study deepens the understanding of smart city construction, which has important policy significance for China to accelerate the construction of an innovative country and the healthy development of smart cities, and provides reference for other developing countries to promote smart city construction.

Iron-Catalyzed Synthesis of Benzosultams from N-Phenyl-N-(prop-2-yn-1-yl)benzenesulfonamide and Benzenesulfonyl Hydrazine.

A novel route for an iron-catalyzed tandem sulfonylation, C(sp2)-H activation, cyclization reaction which uses N-phenyl-N-(prop-2-yn-1-yl)benzenesulfonamide and benzenesulfonohydrazide to synthesize derivatives of (Z)-2-phenyl-4-((phenylsulfonyl)methylene)-3,4-dihydro-2H-benzo[e][1,2]thiazine 1,1-dioxide has been developed. The method features convenient operation and good functional group tolerance. In addition, it employs insensitive and inexpensive FeSO4 as the catalyst and provides a direct approach for the preparation of benzothiazides.

Spatio-Temporal Point Process for Multiple Object Tracking.

Multiple object tracking (MOT) focuses on modeling the relationship of detected objects among consecutive frames and merge them into different trajectories. MOT remains a challenging task as noisy and confusing detection results often hinder the final performance. Furthermore, most existing research are focusing on improving detection algorithms and association strategies. As such, we propose a novel framework that can effectively predict and mask-out the noisy and confusing detection results before associating the objects into trajectories. In particular, we formulate such "bad" detection results as a sequence of events and adopt the spatio-temporal point process to model such events. Traditionally, the occurrence rate in a point process is characterized by an explicitly defined intensity function, which depends on the prior knowledge of some specific tasks. Thus, designing a proper model is expensive and time-consuming, with also limited ability to generalize well. To tackle this problem, we adopt the convolutional recurrent neural network (conv-RNN) to instantiate the point process, where its intensity function is automatically modeled by the training data. Furthermore, we show that our method captures both temporal and spatial evolution, which is essential in modeling events for MOT. Experimental results demonstrate notable improvements in addressing noisy and confusing detection results in MOT data sets. An improved state-of-the-art performance is achieved by incorporating our baseline MOT algorithm with the spatio-temporal point process model.

Tris(1,10-phenanthroline)cobalt(II) bis-(trichloro-acetate).

In the title complex, [Co(C(12)H(8)N(2))(3)](C(2)Cl(3)O(2))(2), the Co(II) ion lies on a twofold rotation axis and is coordinated by six N atoms from three bis-chelating 1,10-phenanthroline ligands in a distorted octa-hedral environment. The crystal structure is stabilized by weak inter-molecular C-H⋯O hydrogen bonds.

Pyridine Detection Using Supramolecular Organic Frameworks Incorporating Cucurbit[10]uril.

A physical impregnation method is presented in this study, providing a facile approach to encapsulating functional guest molecules (GMs) into robust crystalline supramolecular organic frameworks incorporating cucurbit[10]uril (Q[10]-SOF). As Q[10]-SOF has high evaporated pyridine affinity under normal atmospheric pressure, pyridine molecules in this method were successfully encapsulated into the nanospace formed by GMs and Q[10]-SOF while retaining their crystal framework, morphology, and high stability. GMs@Q[10]-SOF solid materials were found to respond to pyridine, being suitable to be used as solid sensors. Notably, Q[10]-SOF loading with pyrene exhibited a unique response to pyridine along with dramatic fluorescence quenching; loading with dansyl chloride exhibited a unique response to pyridine along with significant fluorescence enhancement, having a quick response within 60 s. Our findings represent a critical advancement in the design of pyridine detection and adsorption for commercial gas identification and sensing.

Tetra-imidazole-bis(trichloro-acetato)copper(II).

The title compound, [Cu(C(2)Cl(3)O(2))(2)(C(3)H(4)N(2))(4)], was prepared by the reaction of imidazole and trichloro-acetatocopper(II). The Cu(II) atom adopts a distorted octa-hedral coordination geometry, binding the N atoms of four imidazole ligands and the carboxyl-ate O atoms of two trichloro-acetate anions. The mol-ecular structure and packing are stabilized by N-H⋯O hydrogen-bonding inter-actions. Close inter-molecular Cl⋯Cl contacts [3.498 (3) Å] are also found in the structure.