Estimating Cervical Vertebral Maturation with a Lateral Cephalogram Using the Convolutional Neural Network.

Recently, the estimation of bone maturation using deep learning has been actively conducted. However, many studies have considered hand-wrist radiographs, while a few studies have focused on estimating cervical vertebral maturation (CVM) using lateral cephalograms. This study proposes the use of deep learning models for estimating CVM from lateral cephalograms. As the second, third, and fourth cervical vertebral regions (denoted as C2, C3, and C4, respectively) are considerably smaller than the whole image, we propose a stepwise segmentation-based model that focuses on the C2-C4 regions. We propose three convolutional neural network-based classification models: a one-step model with only CVM classification, a two-step model with region of interest (ROI) detection and CVM classification, and a three-step model with ROI detection, cervical segmentation, and CVM classification. Our dataset contains 600 lateral cephalogram images, comprising six classes with 100 images each. The three-step segmentation-based model produced the best accuracy (62.5%) compared to the models that were not segmentation-based.

Efficient Exploitation of Separation Space in Two-Dimensional Liquid Chromatography System for Comprehensive and Efficient Proteomic Analyses.

Proteomics aims to achieve complete profiling of the protein content and protein modifications in cells, tissues, and biofluids and to quantitatively determine changes in their abundances. This information serves to elucidate cellular processes and signaling pathways and to identify candidate protein biomarkers and/or therapeutic targets. Analyses must therefore be both comprehensive and efficient. Here, we present a novel online two-dimensional reverse-phase/reverse-phase liquid chromatography separation platform, which is based on a newly developed online noncontiguous fractionating and concatenating device (NCFC fractionator). In bottom-up proteomics analyses of a complex proteome, this system provided significantly improved exploitation of the separation space of the two RPs, considerably increasing the numbers of peptides identified compared to a contiguous 2D-RP/RPLC method. The fully automated online 2D-NCFC-RP/RPLC system bypassed a number of labor-intensive manual processes required with the previously described offline 2D-NCFC RP/RPLC method, and thus, it offers minimal sample loss in a context of highly reproducible 2D-RP/RPLC experiments.