3D Object Detection Using Multiple-Frame Proposal Features Fusion.

Object detection is important in many applications, such as autonomous driving. While 2D images lack depth information and are sensitive to environmental conditions, 3D point clouds can provide accurate depth information and a more descriptive environment. However, sparsity is always a challenge in single-frame point cloud object detection. This paper introduces a two-stage proposal-based feature fusion method for object detection using multiple frames. The proposed method, called proposal features fusion (PFF), utilizes a cosine-similarity approach to associate proposals from multiple frames and employs an attention weighted fusion (AWF) module to merge features from these proposals. It allows for feature fusion specific to individual objects and offers lower computational complexity while achieving higher precision. The experimental results on the nuScenes dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, achieving an mAP of 46.7%, which is 1.3% higher than the state-of-the-art 3D object detection method.

Aberrant expression of miR-16, B12 and CD272 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with active tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis (TB) immunity is affected by complex immune regulation processes, which involve various immune cells, immune molecules, and cytokines. Here, we evaluated the expression of B12, CD272 and miR-16 in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of patients with active pulmonary tuberculosis. The results showed that monocytes expressing CD272 or B12 were down-regulated in patients with tuberculosis. The expression of B12 and CD272 in T cells and monocytes is related to tuberculosis. In TB patients, the up-regulation of miR-16 was negatively correlated with B12 mRNA expression, miR-16 was mainly expressed in CD14+ monocytes, and CD272 mRNA was mainly expressed in CD19+ B cells. It is worth noting that the overexpression of miR-16 inhibits the expression of CD272 and B12 in monocytes of TB patients. After BCG stimulation, miR-16 expression of CD14+ monocytes was up-regulated and B12 mRNA and CD272 mRNA expressions were down-regulated in TB patients. Finally, we found that miR-16 may participate in the TB immunization process through targeted regulation of B12 expression. These studies indicate that the expression of B12, CD272 and miR-16 in PBMC may be related to tuberculosis.

Equity and efficiency of maternal and child health resources allocation in Hunan Province, China.

BACKGROUND: A reasonable allocation of health resources is often characterized by equity and high efficiency. This study aims to evaluate the equity and efficiency of maternal and child health (MCH) resources allocation in Hunan Province, China. METHODS: Data related to MCH resources and services was obtained from the Hunan maternal and child health information reporting and management system. The Gini coefficient and data envelopment analysis (DEA) were employed to evaluate the equity and efficiency of MCH resources allocation, respectively. RESULTS: The MCH resources allocation in terms of demographic dimension were in a preferred equity status with the Gini values all less than 0.3, and the Gini values for each MCH resources' allocation in terms of the geographical dimension ranged from 0.1298 to 0.4256, with the highest values in the number of midwives and medical equipment (≥ CNY 10,000), which exceeds 0.4, indicating an alert of inequity. More than 40% regions in Hunan were found to be relatively inefficient with decreased return to scale in the allocation of MCH resources, indicating those inefficient regions were using more inputs than needed to obtain the current output levels. CONCLUSIONS: The equity of MCH resources by population size is superior by geographic area and the disproportionate distribution of the number of medical equipment (≥ CNY 10,000) and midwives between different regions was the main source of inequity. Policy-makers need to consider the geographical accessibility of health resources among different regions to ensure people in different regions could get access to available health services. More than 40% of regions in Hunan were found to be inefficient, with using more health resources than needed to produce the current amount of health services. Further investigations on factors affecting the efficiency of MCH resources allocation is still needed to guide regional health plans-making and resource allocation.