Deep Joint Spatiotemporal Network (DJSTN) for Efficient Facial Expression Recognition.

Understanding a person's feelings is a very important process for the affective computing. People express their emotions in various ways. Among them, facial expression is the most effective way to present human emotional status. We propose efficient deep joint spatiotemporal features for facial expression recognition based on the deep appearance and geometric neural networks. We apply three-dimensional (3D) convolution to extract spatial and temporal features at the same time. For the geometric network, 23 dominant facial landmarks are selected to express the movement of facial muscle through the analysis of energy distribution of whole facial landmarks.We combine these features by the designed joint fusion classifier to complement each other. From the experimental results, we verify the recognition accuracy of 99.21%, 87.88%, and 91.83% for CK+, MMI, and FERA datasets, respectively. Through the comparative analysis, we show that the proposed scheme is able to improve the recognition accuracy by 4% at least.

Studies on lymphangiogenesis inhibitors from Korean and Japanese crude drugs.

Metastasis occurs when cancer cells detach from a tumor, travel to distant sites in the body and develop into tumors in these new locations. Most cancer patients die from metastases. Among the various forms of cancer metastasis, lymphatic metastasis is an important determinant in cancer treatment and staging. In this study, we investigated lymphangiogenesis inhibitors from crude drugs used in Japan and Korea. The three crude drugs Saussureae Radix, Psoraleae Semen and Aurantti Fructus Immaturus significantly inhibited the proliferation of temperature-sensitive rat lymphatic endothelial (TR-LE) cells in vitro. By a chromatographic method using bioassay-guided fractionation methods, costunolide (1) and dehydrocostus lactone (2) from S. Radix, p-hydroxybenzaldehyde (3), psoralen (4), angelicin (5), psoracorylifol D (6), isobavachalone (7), bavachinin (8) Δ(3),2-hydroxybakuchiol (9) and bakuchiol (10) from P. Semen and cis-octadecyl ferulate (11), (2R)-3ß,7,4'-trihydroxy-5-methoxy-8-(γ,γ-dimethylallyl)-flavanone (12), (2S)-7,4'-dihydroxy-5-methoxy-8-(γ,γ-dimethylallyl)-flavanone (13) and umbelliferone (14) from A. F. Immaturus were obtained. Three compounds (compounds 11-13) from A. F. Immaturus were isolated for the first time from this medicinal plant. Among isolated compounds, ten compounds (compounds 1, 2, 6-12, 13) showed an inhibitory effect on the proliferation and the capillary-like tube formation of TR-LE cells. In addition, all compounds except compound 12 showed selective inhibition of the proliferation of TR-LE cells compared to Hela and Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) cells. These compounds might offer clinical benefits as lymphangiogenesis inhibitors and may be good candidates for novel anti-cancer and anti-metastatic agents.

Re-evaluation of the antioxidant prenylated flavonoids from the roots of Sophora flavescens.

The objective of this research was to re-evaluate the antioxidant effects of the prenylated flavonoids from Sophora flavescens via in vitro 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2'-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS), peroxynitrite (ONOO(-)), and total reactive oxygen species (ROS) assays. In addition, a further examination of kuraridinol, kurarinol, and kurarinone, also isolated from S. flavescens, was carried out by the inhibition of tert-butylhydroperoxide (t-BHP)-induced intracellular ROS generation and t-BHP-induced activation of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB). Upon re-examination of the ethyl acetate (EtOAc) soluble fraction of S. flavescens, two major prenylated chalcones, including kuraridin and kuraridinol, along with a minor prenylated flavonol, kushenol C, were isolated as good DPPH scavengers. This was in contrast to the prenylated flavanones, sophoraflavanone G and kurarinone, which were isolated from the methylene chloride (CH(2)Cl(2)) fraction of the same source. Five flavanones consisting of kushenol E, leachianone G, kurarinol, sophoraflavanone G, and kurarinone exhibited significant antioxidant potentials in the ABTS, ONOO(-), and total ROS assays; however, the prenylated chalcones and prenylated flavonol showed more potent scavenging/inhibitory activities than the prenylated flavanones. Therefore, the prenylated chalcones and prenylated flavonol, rather than the prenylated flavanones, may make important contributions toward the marked antioxidant capacities of S. flavescens. Furthermore, kuraridinol, kurarinol, and kurarinone showed significant inhibitory activities against intracellular ROS levels as well as NF-kappaB activation by t-BHP. Overall, the results indicate that S. flavescens and its prenylated flavonoids may possess good anti-inflammatory activity, which is implicated in their significant antioxidant activity.