A deep semantic network-based image segmentation of soybean rust pathogens.

Introduction: Asian soybean rust is a highly aggressive leaf-based disease triggered by the obligate biotrophic fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi which can cause up to 80% yield loss in soybean. The precise image segmentation of fungus can characterize fungal phenotype transitions during growth and help to discover new medicines and agricultural biocides using large-scale phenotypic screens. Methods: The improved Mask R-CNN method is proposed to accomplish the segmentation of densely distributed, overlapping and intersecting microimages. First, Res2net is utilized to layer the residual connections in a single residual block to replace the backbone of the original Mask R-CNN, which is then combined with FPG to enhance the feature extraction capability of the network model. Secondly, the loss function is optimized and the CIoU loss function is adopted as the loss function for boundary box regression prediction, which accelerates the convergence speed of the model and meets the accurate classification of high-density spore images. Results: The experimental results show that the mAP for detection and segmentation, accuracy of the improved algorithm is improved by 6.4%, 12.3% and 2.2% respectively over the original Mask R-CNN algorithm. Discussion: This method is more suitable for the segmentation of fungi images and provide an effective tool for large-scale phenotypic screens of plant fungal pathogens.

Process Optimization for Robotic Ultrasonic Strengthening of Aviation Blade Surfaces Based on Intelligent Compliance Control.

In order to enhance the automation level and achieve high precision in the ultrasonic strengthening of aviation blade surfaces, this study focuses on investigating the intelligent control strategy and optimizing the machining parameters for robotic ultrasonic surface strengthening. By designing an intelligent compliance control method, the end-effector can achieve the compliant output of contact force. The fuzzy PID control method is used to optimize the regulation performance of the compliant force control system. This compliance control strategy enables the optimization of the compliance device, effectively improving the static and dynamic characteristics of the compliance controller. Based on this, an experimental method (RSM) is designed to analyze the interaction effects of contact force, feed rate, and repetition times on the surface quality of the blade. The optimal combination of robotic strengthening parameters is determined, providing a practical reference for the application of robotic compliance control in the ultrasonic strengthening of aviation blade surfaces.

An Autopsy Analysis of a Patient With Long-Chain 3-Hydroxyacyl-CoA Dehydrogenase Deficiency Caused by Compound Heterozygous HADHA Gene Mutations.

ABSTRACT: Long-chain 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase (LCHAD) deficiency is a rare mitochondrial disease characterized by lipid oxidation disorder. It is an autosomal recessive disease induced by a mutation in the HADHA gene, which encodes the LCHAD deficiency. The clinical manifestations of this disease are diverse, primarily affecting the heart, liver, and skeletal muscles. Common symptoms include cardiomyopathy, peripheral neuropathy, retinopathy, and even lead to death in severe cases.Herein, we report a patient who was hospitalized due to flatulence, crying, irritability, and died of acute cardiopulmonary failure after 8 days in hospital. An autopsy was performed to determine the cause of death. Clinical examination revealed abnormal liver and kidney function, and the genetic metabolic disease profile indicated significantly elevated levels of long-chain acyl-carnitine and long-chain 3-OH-acyl-carnitine. Histopathological examination revealed diffuse hepatic steatosis, and the genetic sequencing results detected compound heterozygous mutations in the HADHA gene (c.1528G>C [p.E510Q] and c.703_704dupCG [p.T236Gfs*3]). Of note, the mother had a history of acute fatty liver during pregnancy. Collectively, our study may contribute to understanding the HADHA gene mutation profile and the clinical phenotype of LCHAD deficiency, emphasizing the importance of genetic testing in forensic pathology.

Quasi-Static Mechanical Properties and Continuum Constitutive Model of the Thyroid Gland.

The purpose of this study is to obtain the digital twin parameters of the thyroid gland and to build a constitutional model of the thyroid gland based on continuum mechanics, which will lay the foundation for the establishment of a surgical training system for the thyroid surgery robot and the development of the digital twin of the thyroid gland. First, thyroid parenchyma was obtained from fresh porcine thyroid tissue and subjected to quasi-static unconfined uniaxial compression tests using a biomechanical test platform with two strain rates (0.005 s-1 and 0.05 s-1) and two loading orientations (perpendicular to the thyroid surface and parallel to the thyroid surface). Based on this, a tensile thyroid model was established to simulate the stretching process by using the finite element method. The thyroid stretching test was carried out under the same parameters to verify the validity of the hyperelastic constitutive model. The quasi-static mechanical property parameters of the thyroid tissue were obtained by a quasi-static unconstrained uniaxial compression test, and a constitutional model that can describe the quasi-static mechanical properties of thyroid tissue was proposed based on the principle of continuum media mechanics, which is of great value for the establishment of a surgical training system for the head and neck surgery robot and for the development of the thyroid digital twin.

[Dynamics analysis of knee joint during sit-stand movement].

Sit-stand movement is one of the most common movement behaviors of the human body. The knee joint is the main bearing joint of this movement. Thus, the dynamic analysis of knee joint during this movement has deeply positive influences. According to the principle of moment balance, the dynamics of the knee joint during the movement were analyzed. Furthermore, combined with the data obtained from optical motion capture and six-dimensional ground reaction force test, the curve of knee joint torque was calculated. To verify the accuracy of the analysis of dynamic, the human body model was established, the polynomial equations of angle and angular velocity were fitted according to the experimental data, and the knee joint simulation of the movement was carried out. The result revealed that in terms of range and trend, the theoretical data and simulation data were consistent. The relationship between knee joint torque and ground reaction force was revealed based on the variation law of knee joint torque. During the sit-stand movement, the knee joint torque and the ground reaction force were directly proportional to each other, and the ratio was 5 to 6. In the standing process, the acceleration first increased and then decreased and finally increased in reverse, and the maximum knee torque occurred at an angle of about 140°. In the sitting process, the torque was maximized in the initial stage. The results of the dynamics analysis of knee joint during sit-stand movement are beneficial to the optimal design and force feedback control of seated rehabilitation aids, and can provide theoretical guidance for knee rehabilitation training.

TMSCNet: A three-stage multi-branch self-correcting trait estimation network for RGB and depth images of lettuce.

Growth traits, such as fresh weight, diameter, and leaf area, are pivotal indicators of growth status and the basis for the quality evaluation of lettuce. The time-consuming, laborious and inefficient method of manually measuring the traits of lettuce is still the mainstream. In this study, a three-stage multi-branch self-correcting trait estimation network (TMSCNet) for RGB and depth images of lettuce was proposed. The TMSCNet consisted of five models, of which two master models were used to preliminarily estimate the fresh weight (FW), dry weight (DW), height (H), diameter (D), and leaf area (LA) of lettuce, and three auxiliary models realized the automatic correction of the preliminary estimation results. To compare the performance, typical convolutional neural networks (CNNs) widely adopted in botany research were used. The results showed that the estimated values of the TMSCNet fitted the measurements well, with coefficient of determination (R 2) values of 0.9514, 0.9696, 0.9129, 0.8481, and 0.9495, normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) values of 15.63, 11.80, 11.40, 10.18, and 14.65% and normalized mean squared error (NMSE) value of 0.0826, which was superior to compared methods. Compared with previous studies on the estimation of lettuce traits, the performance of the TMSCNet was still better. The proposed method not only fully considered the correlation between different traits and designed a novel self-correcting structure based on this but also studied more lettuce traits than previous studies. The results indicated that the TMSCNet is an effective method to estimate the lettuce traits and will be extended to the high-throughput situation. Code is available at https://github.com/lxsfight/TMSCNet.git.

Comparing the Effectiveness of Brain Structural Imaging, Resting-state fMRI, and Naturalistic fMRI in Recognizing Social Anxiety Disorder in Children and Adolescents.

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a common anxiety disorder in childhood and adolescence. Studies on SAD in adults have reported both structural and functional aberrancies of the brain at the group level. However, evidence has shown differences in anxiety-related brain abnormalities between adolescents and adults. Since children and adolescents can afford limited scan time, optimizing the scan tasks is essential for SAD research in children and adolescents. Thus, we need to address whether brain structure, resting-state fMRI, and naturalistic imaging enable individualized identification of SAD in children and adolescents, which measurement is more effective, and whether pooling multi-modal features can improve the identification of SAD. We comprehensively addressed these questions by building machine learning models based on parcel-wise brain features. We found that naturalistic fMRI yielded higher classification accuracy (69.17%) than the other modalities and the classification performance showed dependence on the contents of the movie. The classification models also identified contributing brain regions, some of which exhibited correlations with the symptoms scores of SAD. However, pooling brain features from the three modalities did not help enhance the classification accuracy. These results support the application of carefully designed naturalistic imaging in recognizing children and adolescents at risk of SAD.

Research progress and development trend of surgical robot and surgical instrument arm.

BACKGROUND: In recent years, surgical robots have become an indispensable part of the medical field. Surgical robots are increasingly being used in the areas of gynaecological surgery, urological surgery, orthopaedic surgery, general surgery and so forth. In this paper, the development of surgical robots in different operations is reviewed and analysed. In the type of master-slave surgical robotic system, the robotic surgical instrument arms were located in the execution terminal of a surgical robot system, as one of the core components, and directly contact with the patient during the operation, which plays an important role in the efficiency and safety of the operation. In clinical, the arm function and design in different systems varies. Furtherly, the current research progress of robotic surgical instrument arms used in different operations is analysed and summarised. Finally, the challenge and trend are concluded. METHODS: According to the classification of surgical types, the development of surgical robots for laparoscopic surgery, neurosurgery, orthopaedics and microsurgery are analysed and summarised. Then, focusing on the research of robotic surgical instrument arms, according to structure type, the research and application of straight-rod surgical instrument arm, joint surgical instrument arm and continuous surgical instrument arm are analysed respectively. RESULTS: According to the discussion and summary of the characteristics of the existing surgical robots and instrument arms, it is concluded that they still have a lot of room for development in the future. Therefore, the development trends of the surgical robot and instrument arm are discussed and analysed in the five aspects of structural materials, modularisation, telemedicine, intelligence and human-machine collaboration. CONCLUSION: Surgical robots have shown the development trend of miniaturisation, intelligence, autonomy and dexterity. Thereby, in the field of science and technology, the research on the next generation of minimally invasive surgical robots will usher in a peak period of development.

Clinical analysis of eight cases of fetal intracranial hemorrhage in pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical characteristics, treatment and prognosis of fetal intracranial hemorrhage in pregnancy and to improve the level of diagnosis and treatment. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of eight cases of fetal intracranial hemorrhage in our hospital from 2014 to 2017, including the clinical manifestations, etiology, imaging features, treatment and prognosis. RESULTS: All the cases were diagnosed by prenatal color ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); one of the cases had decreased fetal movements and abnormal fetal heart rate monitoring, and the remaining seven cases had no special clinical symptoms. No clear cause was found in all the cases. Two patients with grade I fetal intracranial hemorrhage and 1 patient with grade II had a cesarean delivery, and no neurological sequelae were found in these neonates after 6 months of follow-up. There was one patient with grade III and four patients with grade IV fetal intracranial hemorrhage; one of the patients with grade IV was stillborn at the time of the discovery, and cesarean section was selected due to scarring of the uterus; intra-amniotic injection of ethacridine lactate was selected to induce labor in three cases, and vaginal delivery was selected; one of the patients with grade IV chose vaginal delivery, and the neonatal cranial brain magnetic resonance imaging after delivery showed no increase in intracranial lesions but showed incomplete development of the remaining nervous system. CONCLUSION: Fetal intracranial hemorrhage can be diagnosed by prenatal color ultrasound and MRI, yet it is often impossible to determine the cause. The prognosis of fetal intracranial hemorrhage is related to grade, and the prognosis of cerebral hemorrhage in patients with grades III-IV is poor.

Experimental investigation of a twisted string actuation for usage in active catheter.

BACKGROUND: The improvement of the steerability and controllability of catheters is highly required because catheter-based interventional diagnosis and therapy have become increasingly popular. However, active catheters are often complex and expensive. METHODS: This study attempts to control catheter tip by a twisted string actuator. Experiments are carried out to analyze the full actuation and bending characteristics of the active catheter. RESULTS: It is indicated that the expected bending motion can be achieved by twisting the strings. Hysteresis behavior in backward and forward motion is also discussed. High repetitive positional accuracy and reverse position accuracy can be obtained when the number of rotation is low. When the number of turns is 25, the maximum tip position errors are 4, 1.8 and 1 mm in X, Y and Z directions, respectively. CONCLUSION: It is expected that the presented method will prove useful for the application of twisted string active catheter.

Identification of hub-methylated differentially expressed genes in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus by multi-omic WGCNA basing epigenome-wide and transcriptome-wide profiling.

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), defined as dysglycaemia that is detected during pregnancy for the first time, has become a global health burden. GDM was found to be correlated to epigenetic changes, which would cause abnormal expression of placental genes. In the present study, we performed multi-omic weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) to systematically identify the hub genes for GDM using both epigenome- and transcriptome-wide microarray data. Two microarray datasets (GSE70493 and GSE70494) were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. GEO2R was used to screen differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially methylated genes (DMGs) between normal and GDM samples, separately. The results of WGCNA found that 15 modules were identified and the MEblack module had a significantly negative correlation with GDM (r = -.28, P = .03). GO enrichment analysis by BinGO of the MEblack module showed that genes were primarily enriched for the presentation of antigen processing, regulation of interferon-α production and interferon-γ-mediated signaling pathway. By comparing the DEGs, DMGs and hub genes in the coexpression network, we identified five hypermethylated, lowly expressed genes (ABLIM1, GRHL1, HLA-F, NDRG1, and SASH1) and one hypomethylated, highly expressed gene (EIF3F) as GDM-related hub DMGs. Moreover, the expression levels of ABLIM1, GRHL1, HLA-F, NDRG1, and SASH11 in the GDM patients and healthy controls were validated by a real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Finally, gene set enrichment analysis showed that the biological function of cardiac muscle contraction was enriched for four GDM-related hub DMGs (ABLIM1, GRHL1, NDRG1, and SASH1). Analysis of this study revealed that dysmethylated hub genes in GDM placentas might affect the placental function and thus, take part in GDM pathogenesis and fetal cardiac development.

Expression and significance of Parkinson disease protein 7 in placental, serum and umbilical cord blood in preeclampsia.

OBJECTIVES: To study the role of changes in the expression of human Parkinson's disease protein 7 (PARK7/DJ-1) in preeclampsia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We selected 120 gravidas, including 60 cases of severe preeclampsia group and control group, and divided into early onset preeclampsia group (< 34 weeks), late onset preeclampsia group (≥ 34 weeks) and control group according to the onset of pregnancy. The expression level of DJ-1 was detected by ELISA. The expression level of DJ-1 in placenta tissue of gravidas was detected by Western-blot and RT-PCR. RESULTS: The level of DJ-1 in serum and cord blood of preeclampsia group was higher than that of control group. The relative level of DJ-1 protein and DJ-1 mRNA in placenta tissue of preeclampsia group was higher than that of control group. CONCLUSIONS: The expression level of DJ-1 in serum, umbilical cord blood and placenta tissue increased in preeclampsia patients, suggesting that DJ-1 may take part in the pathophysiology process of preeclampsia.

Expression of Cripto-1 in the placenta and its role in placenta accreta and placenta previa.

OBJECTIVES: This study Aims to explore the role of placental Cripto-1 in the incidence of an adherent placenta. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Ten pregnant women with placenta increta, 20 pregnant women with placenta previa and 30 women with normal pregnant were enrolled in this study. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to measure the expression of Cripto-1 in the placenta while as the analysis of placental Cripto-1 was performed by Western blotting RESULTS: The placenta increta group showed higher levels of Cripto-1 in the center of the increta as compared to the non-implantation area. The level of placental Cripto-1 in the placenta increta was higher than that of the placenta accrete. The expression of placental Cripto-1 in the placenta increta and placenta previa groups was higher than that of control. CONCLUSIONS: Placental Cripto-1 is involved in the regulation of placental tissue invasion. Additionally, excessive placental growth or penetration into the myometrium are likely to be involved in the development of placenta increta.

Relationship between uterine smooth muscular CPI-17-signal pathway-mediated Ca2+ sensitivity changes and uterine atony-induced postpartum haemorrhage.

This study aimed to investigate the changes of protein kinase C (PKC)-potentiated phosphatase inhibitor of 17 ku (CPI-17) expression, PKC activity and Rho kinase activity in the maternal uterine smooth muscle (USM), and their roles in the occurrence of uterine atony-induced postpartum haemorrhage (UAI-PPH). Sixty primiparaes who had a caesarean section performed were divided into the case group (with UAI-PPH) and the control group (the uterine contraction was good, without the PPH). The USM-p-CPI-17 (Thr38) protein levels, the activities of PKC and Rho kinase in the case group and the control group were 0.43 ± 0.20, 4.30 ± 0.91, 10.85 ± 1.70 and 0.67 ± 0.32, 0.099 ± 0.028, 0.20 ± 0.071, respectively (p < .05). The down-regulated expression of CPI-17 phosphorylated proteins might be one of the important factors of UAI-PPH, while the activity reduction of PKC and Rho kinase might be the reason that led to the phosphorylation level reduction of USM-CPI-17 in UAI-PPH. Impact Statement What is already known on this subject? The studies have shown that in the late pregnancy period, the total protein and phosphorylated protein of myometrial CPI-17 are significantly higher than in the non-pregnancy state, and they were all involved in regulating and enhancing the Ca2+ sensitivity of USMC during the pregnancy. The data regarding the CPI-17-signal pathway-mediated Ca2+ sensitivity in UAI-PPH is sparse. What do the results of this study add? We have shown that the down-regulated expression of CPI-17 phosphorylated proteins might be one of the important factors of UAI-PPH, while the activity reduction of PKC and Rho kinase might be the reason that led to the phosphorylation level reduction of USM-CPI-17 in UAI-PPH. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Further studies are needed to confirm the pathogenesis of CPI-17-signal pathway-mediated Ca2+ sensitivity in UAI-PPH.

The Design of Rare-Earth Giant Magnetostrictive Ultrasonic Transducer and Experimental Study on Its Application of Ultrasonic Surface Strengthening.

Ultrasonic transducer based on rare-earth giant magnetostrictive materials was designed in accordance with the technical requirements of ultrasonic surface strengthening. The whole structure of the transducer was designed. Modal analysis is made to get the natural frequency of the compound oscillator. The working frequency of the transducer should be guaranteed at about 15.2 kHz and the composite oscillator should have relatively better vibration mode. The magnetic field of the transducer is well sealed and the transducer will not show obvious magnetic flux leakage phenomenon. Which shows the rationality of structural design. Based on this transducer, the ultrasonic surface strengthening experiment on 40 steel was conducted. The surface roughness and hardness of the parts were analyzed after the experiment. The results show that the surface of the parts reach the mirror surface result after the ultrasonic strengthening. When compared to the previous process, the roughness decreases by about 75%, and the surface hardness increases by more than 20%.

[Spectra study of a sodion triethylenetetramine-bisdithiocarbamate and its complexes with heavy metal ions].

A sodion triethylenetetramine-bisdithiocarbamate (DTC-TETA) and its complexes with heavy metal ions were investigated by FTIR, UV, FAAS and elemental analysis, respectively. The FTIR spectrum of DTC-TETA showed strong absorption peaks at 1 461-1 388 cm(-1) and 1 174-996 cm(-1) which were attributed to partly double bonds of C-N and C-S, respectively. The UV spectrum of DTC-TETA had two absorption peaks at 265 and 290 nm, assigned to pi-pi* transition of N...C...S radical and nonbonding electron n-pi* transition of S...C...S radical to conjugated system, respectively. The elemental analysis results demonstrated that the mol ratio of C, H, N and S in DTC-TETA was about 2 : 4 : 1 : 1. As for UV spectrum of its complexes with Cu(II), Cd(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II), there were four new absorption peaks at 321, 310, 311 and 325 nm, respectively. Coupled to flow-injection, FAAS determination showed that the complexation performance of Cu2+, Cd2+, Ni2+ and Zn2+ complexes of DTC-TETA was better than that of sodium diethyldithiocarbamate (DDTC).