Image Recognition of Pediatric Pneumonia Based on Fusion of Texture Features and Depth Features.

Pneumonia is one of the diseases that seriously endangers human health, and it is also the leading cause of death of children under the age of five in China. The most commonly used imaging examination method for radiologists is mainly based on chest X-ray images. Still, imaging errors often result during imaging examinations due to objective factors such as visual fatigue and lack of experience. Therefore, this paper proposes a feature fusion model, FC-VGG, based on the fusion of texture features (local binary pattern LBP and directional gradient histogram HOG) and depth features. The model improves model performance by adding detailed information in texture features to the convolutional neural network while making the model more suitable for clinical use. We input the X-ray image with texture features into the modified VGG16 model, C-VGG, and then add the Add fusion method to C-VGG for feature fusion so that FC-VGG is obtained, so FC-VGG has texture features detailed information and abstract information of deep features. Through experiments, our model has achieved 92.19% accuracy in recognizing children's pneumonia images, 93.44% average precision, 92.19% average recall, and 92.81% average F1 coefficient, and the model performance exceeds existing deep learning models and traditional feature recognition algorithms.

Auxiliary Pneumonia Classification Algorithm Based on Pruning Compression.

Pneumonia infection is the leading cause of death in young children. The commonly used pneumonia detection method is that doctors diagnose through chest X-ray, and external factors easily interfere with the results. Assisting doctors in diagnosing pneumonia in patients based on deep learning methods can effectively eliminate similar problems. However, the complex network structure and redundant parameters of deep neural networks and the limited storage and computing resources of clinical medical hardware devices make it difficult for this method to use widely in clinical practice. Therefore, this paper studies a lightweight pneumonia classification network, CPGResNet50 (ResNet50 with custom channel pruning and ghost methods), based on ResNet50 pruning and compression to better meet the application requirements of clinical pneumonia auxiliary diagnosis with high precision and low memory. First, based on the hierarchical channel pruning method, the channel after the convolutional layer in the bottleneck part of the backbone network layer is used as the pruning object, and the pruning operation is performed after its normalization to obtain a network model with a high compression ratio. Second, the pruned convolutional layers are decomposed into original convolutions and cheap convolutions using the optimized convolution method. The feature maps generated by the two convolution parts are combined as the input to the next convolutional layer. Further, we conducted many experiments using pneumonia X-ray medical image data. The results show that the proposed method reduces the number of parameters of the ResNet50 network model from 23.7 M to 3.455 M when the pruning rate is 90%, a reduction is more than 85%, FIOPs dropped from 4.12G to 523.09 M, and the speed increased by more than 85%. The model training accuracy error remained within 1%. Therefore, the proposed method has a good performance in the auxiliary diagnosis of pneumonia and obtained good experimental results.

Structural characteristics of Gracilaria lemaneiformis oligosaccharides and their alleviation of dextran sulphate sodium-induced colitis by modulating the gut microbiota and intestinal metabolites in mice.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic lifetime disorder with a high incidence worldwide. A functional food-based method to prevent UC would be a good option for disease control. G. lemaneiformis oligosaccharides (GLOs) should have potent benefits for the gastrointestinal tract, based on in vitro fermentation assessed in our previous study. This study evaluated the therapeutic potential of GLOs in UC, as well as their possible mechanisms of action. The administration of GLOs was able to reduce the severity of dextran sulphate sodium-induced colitis by protecting mice from weight loss, reductions in colon length, inflammatory infiltration, and colon damage. Gut microbiota composition analysis showed that at the phylum level, GLOs could restore the composition of Bacteroidetes and decrease the level of Firmicutes. Consistently, it increased the contents of beneficial microbial metabolites and short-chain fatty acids in the mouse colitis model. In conclusion, GLOs could comprise a promising functional food strategy to alleviate UC symptoms.

Antioxidant Potential of Physicochemically Characterized Gracilaria blodgettii Sulfated Polysaccharides.

Marine rhodophyte polysaccharides have a wide range of described biological properties with nontoxic characteristics, and show great potential in prebiotics and the functional foods industries. However, there is a virtual lack of Gracilaria blodgettii polysaccharides (GBP) profiling and their bioactivities. This study was designed while keeping in view the lack of physical and chemical characterization of GBP. This polysaccharide was also not previously tested for any bioactivities. A linear random coil conformation was observed for GBP, which was found to be a polysaccharide. A significant sulfate (w/w, 9.16%) and 3,6-anhydrogalactose (AHG, w/w, 17.97%) content was found in GBP. The significant difference in its setting (27.33 °C) and melting (64.33 °C) points makes it resistant to increasing heat. This, in turn, points to its utility in industrial scale processing and in enhancing the shelf-life of products under high temperatures. A radical scavenging activity of 19.80%, 25.42% and 8.80% was noted for GBP (3 mg/mL) in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2'-azino-bis (ABTS) and hydroxyl radical (HO) scavenging assays, respectively. Therefore, the findings suggest that Gracilaria blodgettii polysaccharides display a good antioxidant potential and may have potential applications in the functional food industry.

Current trends in marine algae polysaccharides: The digestive tract, microbial catabolism, and prebiotic potential.

Marine algae contain unique polysaccharides which differ from terrestrial plant polysaccharides, having a different composition, substitution, and linkage types. These are non-digestible by digestive enzymes in humans. Remarkably, marine algae polysaccharides (MAPs) may selectively enhance the activities of some populations of beneficial bacteria and stimulate the production of functional metabolites by gut microbiota. The MAPs also stimulate a range of biological activities, such as anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, immune-modulatory, and anti-diabetic. There is great potential to explore prebiotic MAP compounds. However, the exact digestion and fermentation behaviors in the human gastrointestinal tract, as well as their beneficial physiological effects, are to a large extent unexplored. An in-depth investigation of MAPs will provide us novel insights into the specific fermentation behavior for the observed human gut benefits. This paper is envisioned to offer a new perspective on the sustainability-promoting applications of MAPs as prebiotics in the functional food and pharmaceutical industries.

Chloride channels are involved in sperm motility and are downregulated in spermatozoa from patients with asthenozoospermia.

Human spermatozoa encounter an osmotic decrease from 330 to 290 mOsm l-1 when passing through the female reproductive tract. We aimed to evaluate the role of chloride channels in volume regulation and sperm motility from patients with asthenozoospermia. Spermatozoa were purified using Percoll density gradients. Sperm volume was measured as the forward scatter signal using flow cytometry. Sperm motility was analyzed using computer-aided sperm analysis (CASA). When transferred from an isotonic solution (330 mOsm l-1 ) to a hypotonic solution (290 mOsm l-1 ), cell volume was not changed in spermatozoa from normozoospermic men; but increased in those from asthenozoospermic samples. The addition of the chloride channel blockers, 4,4'-diisothiocyanatostilbene-2,2'- isulfonic acid (DIDS) or 5-nitro-2-(3-phenylpropylamino) benzoic acid (NPPB) to the hypotonic solution caused the normal spermatozoa to swell but did not increase the volume of those from the asthenozoospermic semen. DIDS and NPPB decreased sperm motility in both sets of semen samples. The inhibitory effect of NPPB on normal sperm motility was much stronger than on spermatozoa from the asthenozoospermic samples. Both sperm types expressed ClC-3 chloride channels, but the expression levels in the asthenozoospermic samples were much lower, especially in the neck and mid-piece areas. Spermatozoa from men with asthenozoospermia demonstrated lower volume regulating capacity, mobility, and ClC-3 expression levels (especially in the neck) than did normal spermatozoa. Thus, chloride channels play important roles in the regulation of sperm volume and motility and are downregulated in cases of asthenozoospermia.

Association of decreased spermatozoa omega-3 fatty acid levels and increased oxidative DNA damage with varicocele in infertile men: a case control study.

Varicocele is commonly associated with male infertility because it impairs normal sperm morphology and activity. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are important determinants of sperm cell structure and function, but their relationship with varicocele remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the PUFA composition in spermatozoa of infertile men with varicocele and to evaluate the potential relationship between PUFA and varicocele. This case control study recruited 92 infertile men with varicocele, 99 infertile men without varicocele and 95 fertile male control subjects. Semen morphology and activity parameters were assessed and seminal plasma 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) content was determined by ELISA. Sperm concentrations of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids were measured by gas chromatography. Infertile men with varicocele had lower concentrations of omega-3 PUFA, higher omega-6:omega-3 PUFA ratios and greater oxidative DNA damage in spermatozoa compared with infertile men without varicocele and normal subjects. The degree of varicocele and DNA damage was associated with decreased omega-3 PUFA concentrations and semen quality in infertile men with varicocele. The findings suggest that omega-3 PUFA deficiency could be implicated in varicocele-associated infertility, and highlight the need for intervention trials to test the usefulness of omega-3 supplementation in reducing sperm abnormalities in infertile men with varicocele.

C5a/C5aR pathway is essential for the pathogenesis of murine viral fulminant hepatitis by way of potentiating Fgl2/fibroleukin expression.

UNLABELLED: Viral fulminant hepatitis (FH) remains a serious clinical problem with very high mortality. Lacking understanding of FH pathogenesis has in essence hindered efficient clinical treatment. Inferring from a correlation observed between the genetic differences in the complement component 5 (C5) and the susceptibility of mouse strains to murine hepatitis virus strain-3 (MHV-3) infections, we propose that excessive complement activation plays a critical role in the development of FH. We show that MHV-3 infection causes massive complement activation, along with a rapid increase in serum C5a levels and quick development of FH in susceptible strains. Mice deficient in the C5a receptor (C5aR) or the susceptible strains treated with C5aR antagonists (C5aRa) exhibit significant attenuation of the disease, accompanied by a remarkable reduction of hepatic fibrinogen-like protein 2 (Fgl2), a hallmark protein that causes necrosis of infected livers. In accordance, biopsy of FH patients shows a dramatic increase of Fgl2 expression, which correlates with C5aR up-regulation in the liver. In vitro C5a administration accelerates MHV-3-induced Fgl2 secretion by macrophages. Furthermore, inhibiting ERK1/2 and p38 efficiently blocks C5a-mediated Fgl2 production during viral infections. CONCLUSION: These data provide evidence that mouse susceptibility to MHV-3-induced FH may rely on C5a/C5aR interactions, for which ERK1/2 and p38 pathways participate in up-regulating Fgl2 expression. Inhibition of C5a/C5aR interactions is expected to be beneficial in the clinical treatment of FH patients.

[Chromosome abnormalities and Y chromosome microdeletions in patients with the azoospermia and cryptozoospermia].

OBJECTIVE: To study the incidence of the chromosome abnormalities and Y chromosome microdeletions in Chinese patients with azoospermia and cryptozoospermia. METHODS: Conventional chromosomal karyotyping was used to analyze the chromosome abnormalities. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood samples and multiplex polymerase chain reactions (PCR) analyses were performed using specific primers to confirm the presence or absence of Y chromosome microdeletions. A total of 997 patients with azoospermia and cryptozoospermia were enrolled in the study. RESULTS: The incidence of chromosome abnormalities in the patient with azoospermia and cryptozoospermia was 28.4%. The major abnormal karyotypes included 47,XXY, 46,XY (Y>G), 46,XX, chimera and translocations. The incidence of the Y chromosome microdeletions was 17.4%. They were mainly found in the karyotypes of 46,XY and 46,XY (Y>G). CONCLUSION: Chromosome abnormalities were the most common hereditary causes of the patients with azoospermia and cryptozoospermia. The incidence of Y chromosome microdeletion was higher in the patients with karyotype of 46,XY and 46,XY (Y>G). Therefore, detection of the AZF microdeletion in these patients is helpful to determine the etiology and avoid the unnecessary treatment and vertical transmission of the genetic defects.