The red swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii cathepsin C, participates in the innate immune response to the viral and bacterial pathogens.

The cathepsin C, a lysosomal cysteine protease, involves the modulation of immune and inflammatory responses in living organisms. However, the knowledge on cathepsin C in red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), a freshwater crustacean with economic values, remained unclear. In the present study, we provide identification and molecular characterization of cathepsin C from P. clarkii. (Hereafter Pc-cathepsin C). The Pc-cathepsin C cDNA contained a 1356 bp open reading frame that encoded a protein of 451 amino acid residues. The deduced amino acid sequence comprised of cathepsin C exclusion domain and pept_C1 domain, and also catalytic residues (Cys248, His395 and Asn417). Analysis of the transcriptional patterns of the Pc-cathepsin C gene revealed that it was broadly distributed in various tissues of P. clarkii, and it was more abundant in the hepatopancreas and gut. Following a challenge with viral and bacterial pathogen-associated molecular patterns, the expression of Pc-cathepsin C was strongly enhanced at different time points. The knockdown of Pc-cathepsin C, altered the expression of immune-responsive genes, suggesting its immunoregulatory role in P. clarkii. This study has identified and provided the immunoregulatory function of Pc-cathepsin C, which will contribute to further investigation of the molecular mechanism of cathepsin C in crustaceans.

Machine learning techniques based on 18F-FDG PET radiomics features of temporal regions for the classification of temporal lobe epilepsy patients from healthy controls.

Background: This study aimed to investigate the clinical application of 18F-FDG PET radiomics features for temporal lobe epilepsy and to create PET radiomics-based machine learning models for differentiating temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients from healthy controls. Methods: A total of 347 subjects who underwent 18F-FDG PET scans from March 2014 to January 2020 (234 TLE patients: 25.50 ± 8.89 years, 141 male patients and 93 female patients; and 113 controls: 27.59 ± 6.94 years, 48 male individuals and 65 female individuals) were allocated to the training (n = 248) and test (n = 99) sets. All 3D PET images were registered to the Montreal Neurological Institute template. PyRadiomics was used to extract radiomics features from the temporal regions segmented according to the Automated Anatomical Labeling (AAL) atlas. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and Boruta algorithms were applied to select the radiomics features significantly associated with TLE. Eleven machine-learning algorithms were used to establish models and to select the best model in the training set. Results: The final radiomics features (n = 7) used for model training were selected through the combinations of the LASSO and the Boruta algorithms with cross-validation. All data were randomly divided into a training set (n = 248) and a testing set (n = 99). Among 11 machine-learning algorithms, the logistic regression (AUC 0.984, F1-Score 0.959) model performed the best in the training set. Then, we deployed the corresponding online website version (https://wane199.shinyapps.io/TLE_Classification/), showing the details of the LR model for convenience. The AUCs of the tuned logistic regression model in the training and test sets were 0.981 and 0.957, respectively. Furthermore, the calibration curves demonstrated satisfactory alignment (visually assessed) for identifying the TLE patients. Conclusion: The radiomics model from temporal regions can be a potential method for distinguishing TLE. Machine learning-based diagnosis of TLE from preoperative FDG PET images could serve as a useful preoperative diagnostic tool.

A PET-based radiomics nomogram for individualized predictions of seizure outcomes after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery.

PURPOSE: To establish and validate a novel nomogram based on clinical characteristics and [18F]FDG PET radiomics for the prediction of postsurgical seizure freedom in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). PATIENTS AND METHODS: 234 patients with drug-refractory TLE patients were included with a median follow-up time of 24 months after surgery. The correlation coefficient redundancy analysis and LASSO Cox regression were used to characterize risk factors. The Cox model was conducted to develop a Clinic-PET nomogram to predict the relapse status in the training set (n = 171). The nomogram's performance was estimated through discrimination, calibration, and clinical utility. The prognostic prediction model was validated in the test set (n = 63). RESULTS: Eight radiomics features were selected to assess the radiomics score (radscore) of the operation side (Lat_radscore) and the asymmetric index (AI) of the radiomics score (AI_radscore). AI_radscor, Lat_radscor, secondarily generalized seizures (SGS), and duration between seizure onset and surgery (Durmon) were significant predictors of seizure-free outcomes. The final model had a C-index of 0.68 (95 %CI: 0.59-0.77) for complete freedom from seizures and time-dependent AUROC was 0.65 at 12 months, 0.65 at 36 months, and 0.59 at 60 months in the test set. A web application derived from the primary predictive model was displayed for economic and efficient use. CONCLUSIONS: A PET-based radiomics nomogram is clinically promising for predicting seizure outcomes after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery.

Alterations of apparent diffusion coefficient from ultra high b-values in the bilateral thalamus and striatum in MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: Subcortical nuclei such as the thalamus and striatum have been shown to be related to seizure modulation and termination, especially in drug-resistant epilepsy. Enhance diffusion-weighted imaging (eDWI) technique and tri-component model have been used in previous studies to calculate apparent diffusion coefficient from ultra high b-values (ADCuh). This study aimed to explore the alterations of ADCuh in the bilateral thalamus and striatum in MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy. METHODS: Twenty-nine patients with MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy and 18 healthy controls underwent eDWI scan with 15 b-values (0-5000 s/mm2). The eDWI parameters including standard ADC (ADCst), pure water diffusion (D), and ADCuh were calculated from the 15 b-values. Regions-of-interest (ROIs) analyses were conducted in the bilateral thalamus, caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus. ADCst, D, and ADCuh values were compared between the MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy patients and controls using multivariate generalized linear models. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman (BA) analysis. False discovery rate (FDR) method was applied for multiple comparisons correction. RESULTS: ADCuh values in the bilateral thalamus, caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus in MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy were significantly higher than those in the healthy control subjects (all p < 0.05, FDR corrected). SIGNIFICANCE: The alterations of the ADCuh values in the bilateral thalamus and striatum in MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy might reflect abnormal membrane water permeability in MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy. ADCuh might be a sensitive measurement for evaluating subcortical nuclei-related brain damage in epilepsy patients. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: This study aimed to explore the alterations of apparent diffusion coefficient calculated from ultra high b-values (ADCuh) in the subcortical nuclei such as the bilateral thalamus and striatum in MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy. The bilateral thalamus and striatum showed higher ADCuh in epilepsy patients than healthy controls. These findings may add new evidences of subcortical nuclei abnormalities related to water and ion hemostasis in epilepsy patients, which might help to elucidate the underlying epileptic neuropathophysiological mechanisms and facilitate the exploration of therapeutic targets.

Comparative Pollen Morphology of Selected Species of Blumea DC. and Cyathocline Cass. and Its Taxonomic Significance.

The pollen morphology of 20 species from Blumea and Cyathocline Cass. was investigated using a light microscope (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to explore their taxonomic significance. This study showed that pollen grains of these species were usually tricolporate, rarely tetracolporate (B. sinuata). Nine pollen types were distinguishable through the exine sculpture characters and the number of apertures. It was easily distinguished Cyathocline from species of Blumea s. str. by its much smaller size (15.04 µm × 15.07 µm) and sparse and longer spines (24 spines, spine length 4.23 µm) with acute apex, which suggest that C. purpurea might not belong to the genus Blumea s. str. The palynological characteristics indicated that Section Macrophllae and Section Paniculatae of Blumea were not monophyletic groups. The pollen morphology differentiation of B. lacera clade is consistent with the interspecific relationship revealed by the molecular phylogenetic tree. However, the pollen morphology of the Blumea densiflora clade is inconsistent with the interspecific relationship based on molecular phylogenetic analysis. This palynology research can only partly support the previously published molecular phylogeny of Blumea s. str.

Thirst in heart failure: A scoping review.

AIM: The aim of this study was to summarise the overall picture of thirst-related research in patients with heart failure. DESIGN: We conducted a scoping review following the Arskey and O'Malley methodological framework along with the PAGER framework. METHODS: PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, Embase, The Cochrane Library, Jonna Briggs Institute, ProQuest Database, Google Scholar, PsycINFO, PQDT, CNKI, Wan Fang, VIP and CBM. Additionally, grey literature including grey databases (Opengrey, OpenDoar, Openaire and BASEL Bielefeld Academic Search Engine), conferences or articles (Scopus and Microsoft Academic), graduate theses databases (eTHOS, DART Europe, Worldcat and EBSCO Open Dissertations) and government information media (UK guidance and regulations, USA government websites, EU Bookshop and UN official publications) were searched. The databases were searched from inception to 18 August 2022 for Articles written in English and Chinese. Two researchers independently screened articles based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, and a third researcher adjudicated disagreements. RESULTS: We retrieved 825 articles, of which 26 were included. Three themes were summarised from these articles: (a) the incidence of thirst in patients with heart failure; (b) the thirst-related factors in patients with heart failure; and (c) the intervention measures of thirst in patients with heart failure.

Multiple effects of ZnO nanoparticles on goldfish (Carassius auratus): Skin mucus, gut microbiota and stable isotope composition.

The skin and the gut are direct target tissues for nanoparticles, yet attention to effects of metal-based nanoparticles (MNPs) on these two and the discrepancy in these effects remain inadequate. Here, effects of ZnO nanoparticles (nZnO) on skin mucus and gut microbiota of goldfish (Carassius auratus) were investigated, as well as further elements turnover and metabolic variations. After 14 days of exposure, considerable variations in levels of biomarkers (protein, glucose, lysozyme and immunoglobulin M) in skin mucus demonstrated significant stress responses to nZnO. nZnO exposure significantly reduced the abundance of Cetobacterium in the gut while increased that of multiple pathogens, and further leading to down-regulation of pathways such as carbohydrate metabolism, translation, and replication and repair. Decreased δ15N values indicated declined N turnover in vivo, further demonstrating the negative effect of nZnO on metabolism in the organism. Integration analysis of each biomarker using the biomarker response index version 2 (IBRv2) revealed concentration-dependent effects of nZnO on skin mucus, while effects on physiology in vivo was not, demonstrating the discrepancy in the toxicity pathways and toxic effects of nZnO on different tissues. This work improved our understanding about the comprehensive toxicity of nZnO on aquatic organism.

The Spatial Interaction Effect of Green Spaces on Urban Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from China.

This paper measures the impact of urban green space construction rate on urban economic growth from the perspective of spatial interaction. To this end, we collect panel data of 31 provincial capital cities in China from 2001 to 2020 and use spatial economics models for empirical testing. The research results are summarized as follows: the level of green space construction can attract talents and investment by improving the environmental level of the city, and these financial expenditures, foreign investment, and talents are conducive to urbanization, thus having a significant positive impact on urban economic development. In addition, it also has a significant positive spatial spillover effect. In addition, the construction of urban green space will also stimulate the environmental protection of neighboring cities, which has a significant positive spatial dependence. At this time, talents and investment are affected by the environmental construction of neighboring cities, and the economic development of the city has also been significantly improved. The spatial spillover effect of green space construction on the economic level of surrounding cities is also positive. The empirical conclusions provide references for implementing green development strategies and promoting high-quality economic development.

Disrupted tenogenesis in masseter as a potential cause of micrognathia.

Micrognathia is a severe craniofacial deformity affecting appearance and survival. Previous studies revealed that multiple factors involved in the osteogenesis of mandibular bone have contributed to micrognathia, but concerned little on factors other than osteogenesis. In the current study, we found that ectopic activation of Fgf8 by Osr2-cre in the presumptive mesenchyme for masseter tendon in mice led to micrognathia, masseter regression, and the disrupted patterning and differentiation of masseter tendon. Since Myf5-cre;Rosa26R-Fgf8 mice exhibited the normal masseter and mandibular bone, the possibility that the micrognathia and masseter regression resulted directly from the over-expressed Fgf8 was excluded. Further investigation disclosed that a series of chondrogenic markers were ectopically activated in the developing Osr2-cre;Rosa26R-Fgf8 masseter tendon, while the mechanical sensing in the masseter and mandibular bone was obviously reduced. Thus, it suggested that the micrognathia in Osr2-cre;Rosa26R-Fgf8 mice resulted secondarily from the reduced mechanical force transmitted to mandibular bone. Consistently, when tenogenic or myogenic components were deleted from the developing mandibles, both the micrognathia and masseter degeneration took place with the decreased mechanical sensing in mandibular bone, which verified that the loss of mechanical force transmitted by masseter tendon could result in micrognathia. Furthermore, it appeared that the micrognathia resulting from the disrupted tenogenesis was attributed to the impaired osteogenic specification, instead of the differentiation in the periosteal progenitors. Our findings disclose a novel mechanism for mandibular morphogenesis, and shed light on the prevention and treatment for micrognathia.

Synthesis and bioevaluation of diaryl urea derivatives as potential antitumor agents for the treatment of human colorectal cancer.

The development of inhibitors targeting the PI3K-Akt-mTOR signaling pathway has been greatly hindered by the on-target AEs, such as hyperglycemia and hepatotoxicities. In this study, a series of diaryl urea derivatives has been designed and synthesized based on clinical candidate gedatolisib (6aa), and most of the newly synthesized derivatives showed kinase inhibitory and antiproliferative activities within nanomolar and submicromolar level, respectively. The terminal l-prolineamide substituted derivative 6 ab showed 8.6-fold more potent PI3Kα inhibitory activity (0.7 nM) and 4.6-fold more potent antiproliferative effect against HCT116 cell lines (0.11 µM) compared with control 6aa. The potential antitumor mechanism and efficacy of 6 ab in HCT116 xenograft models have also been evaluated, and found 6 ab showed comparable in vivo antitumor activity with 6aa. The safety investigations revealed that compound 6 ab exhibited more safer profiles in the selectivity of liver cells (selectivity index: >6.6 vs 1.85) and blood glucose regulation than 6aa. In addition, the in vitro stability assays also indicated our developed compound 6 ab possessed good metabolic stabilities.

Altered BMP-Smad4 signaling causes complete cleft palate by disturbing osteogenesis in palatal mesenchyme.

As the major receptor mediated BMP signaling in craniofacial development, Bmpr1a expression was detected in the anterior palatal shelves from E13.5 and the posterior palatal shelves from E14.5. However, inactivating BMP receptor in the mesenchyme only leads to anterior cleft palate or submucous cleft palate. The role of BMP signaling in posterior palatal mesenchyme and palatal osteogenesis is still unknown. In this study, a secreted BMP antagonist, Noggin was over-expressed by Osr2-creKI to suppress BMP signaling intensively in mouse palatal mesenchyme, which made the newborn mouse displaying complete cleft palate, a phenotype much severer than the anterior or submucous cleft palate. Immunohistochemical analysis indicated that in the anterior and posterior palatal mesenchyme, the canonical BMP-Smad4 signaling was dramatically down-regulated, while the non-canonical BMP signaling pathways were altered little. Although cell proliferation was reduced only in the anterior palatal mesenchyme, the osteogenic condensation and Osterix distribution were remarkably repressed in the posterior palatal mesenchyme by Noggin over-expression. These findings suggested that BMP-Smad4 signaling was essential for the cell proliferation in the anterior palatal mesenchyme, and for the osteogenesis in the posterior palatal mesenchyme. Interestingly, the constitutive activation of Bmpr1a in palatal mesenchyme also caused the complete cleft palate, in which the enhanced BMP-Smad4 signaling resulted in the premature osteogenic differentiation in palatal mesenchyme. Moreover, neither the Noggin over-expression nor Bmpr1a activation disrupted the elevation of palatal shelves. Our study not only suggested that BMP signaling played the differential roles in the anterior and posterior palatal mesenchyme, but also indicated that BMP-Smad4 signaling was required to be finely tuned for the osteogenesis of palatal mesenchyme.

Over-expression of Fgf8 in cardiac neural crest cells leads to persistent truncus arteriosus.

During cardiogenesis, the outflow tract undergoes a complicated morphogenesis, including the re-alignment of the great blood vessels, and the separation of aorta and pulmonary trunk. The deficiency of FGF8 in the morphogenesis of outflow tract has been well studied, however, the effect of over-dosed FGF8 on the development of outflow tract remains unknown. In this study, Rosa26R-Fgf8 knock-in allele was constitutively activated by Wnt1-cre transgene in the mouse neural crest cells presumptive for the endocardial cushion of outflow tract. Surprisingly, Wnt1-cre; Rosa26R-Fgf8 mouse embryos exhibited persistent truncus arteriosus and died prior to E15.5. The cardiac neural crest cells in Wnt1-cre; Rosa26R-Fgf8 truncus arteriosus did not degenerate as in WT controls, but proliferated into a thickened endocardial cushion and then, blocked the blood outflow from cardiac chambers into the lungs, which resulted in the embryonic lethality. Although the spiral aorticopulmonary septum failed to form, the differentiaion of the endothelium and smooth muscle in the Wnt1-cre; Rosa26R-Fgf8 truncus arteriosus were impacted little. However, lineage tracing assay showed that the neural crest derived cells aggregated in the cushion layer, but failed to differentiate into the endothelium of Wnt1-cre; Rosa26R-Fgf8 truncus arteriosus. Further investigation displayed the reduced p-Akt and p-Erk immunostaining, and the decreased Bmp2 and Bmp4 transcription in the endothelium of Wnt1-cre; Rosa26R-Fgf8 truncus arteriosus. Our findings suggested that Fgf8 over-expression in cardiac neural crest impaired the formation of aorticopulmonary septum by suppressing the endothelial differentiation and stimulating the proliferation of endocardial cushion cells, which implicated a novel etiology of persistent truncus arteriosus.

Localizing Epileptic Foci Before Surgery in Patients With MRI-Negative Refractory Epilepsy Using Statistical Parameter Mapping and Three-Dimensional Stereotactic Surface Projection Based on 18F-FDG PET.

Patients with refractory epilepsy are not only free of seizures after resecting epileptic foci, but also experience significantly improved quality of life. Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) is a promising avenue for detecting epileptic foci in patients with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-negative refractory epilepsy. However, the detection of epileptic foci by visual assessment based on 18F-FDG PET is often complicated by a variety of factors in clinical practice. Easy imaging methods based on 18F-FDG PET images, such as statistical parameter mapping (SPM) and three-dimensional stereotactic surface projection (3D-SSP), can objectively detect epileptic foci. In this study, the regions of surgical resection of patients with over 1 year follow-up and no seizures were defined as standard epileptic foci. We retrospectively analyzed the sensitivity of visual assessment, SPM and 3D-SSP based on 18F-FDG PET to detect epileptic foci in MRI-negative refractory epilepsy patients and obtained the sensitivities of visual assessment, SPM and 3D-SSP are 57, 70 and 60% respectively. Visual assessment combined with SPM or 3D-SSP can improve the sensitivity of detecting epileptic foci. The sensitivity was highest when the three methods were combined, but decreased consistency, in localizing epileptic foci. We conclude that SPM and 3D-SSP can be used as objective methods to detect epileptic foci before surgery in patients with MRI-negative refractory epilepsy. Visual assessment is the preferred method for PET image analysis in MRI-negative refractory epilepsy. When the visual assessment is inconsistent with the patient's electroclinical information, SPM or 3D-SSP was further selected to assess the epileptic foci. If the combination of the two methods still fails to accurately locate the epileptic foci, comprehensive evaluation can be performed by combining the three methods.

Electroclinical and Multimodality Neuroimaging Characteristics and Predictors of Post-Surgical Outcome in Focal Cortical Dysplasia Type IIIa.

Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) type IIIa is an easily ignored cause of intractable temporal lobe epilepsy. This study aimed to analyze the clinical, electrophysiological, and imaging characteristics in FCD type IIIa and to search for predictors associated with postoperative outcome in order to identify potential candidates for epilepsy surgery. We performed a retrospective review including sixty-six patients with FCD type IIIa who underwent resection for drug-resistant epilepsy. We evaluated the clinical, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging features for potential association with seizure outcome. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to explore their predictive role on the seizure outcome. We demonstrated that thirty-nine (59.1%) patients had seizure freedom outcomes (Engel class Ia) with a median postsurgical follow-up lasting 29.5 months. By univariate analysis, duration of epilepsy (less than 12 years) (p = 0.044), absence of contralateral insular lobe hypometabolism on PET/MRI (p Log-rank = 0.025), and complete resection of epileptogenic area (p Log-rank = 0.004) were associated with seizure outcome. The incomplete resection of the epileptogenic area (hazard ratio = 2.977, 95% CI 1.218-7.277, p = 0.017) was the only independent predictor for seizure recurrence after surgery by multivariate analysis. The results of past history, semiology, electrophysiological, and MRI were not associated with seizure outcomes. Carefully included patients with FCD type IIIa through a comprehensive evaluation of their clinical, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging characteristics can be good candidates for resection. Several preoperative factors appear to be predictive of the postoperative outcome and may help in optimizing the selection of ideal candidates to benefit from epilepsy surgery.

Realistic hair simulator for skin lesion images: A novel benchemarking tool.

Automated skin lesion analysis is one of the trending fields that has gained attention among the dermatologists and health care practitioners. Skin lesion restoration is an essential pre-processing step for lesion enhancements for accurate automated analysis and diagnosis by both dermatologists and computer-aided diagnosis tools. Hair occlusion is one of the most popular artifacts in dermatoscopic images. It can negatively impact the skin lesions diagnosis by both dermatologists and automated computer diagnostic tools. Digital hair removal is a non-invasive method for image enhancement for decrease the hair-occlusion artifact in previously captured images. Several hair removal methods were proposed for skin delineation and removal without standardized benchmarking techniques. Manual annotation is one of the main challenges that hinder the validation of these proposed methods on a large number of images or against benchmarking datasets for comparison purposes. In the presented work, we propose a photo-realistic hair simulator based on context-aware image synthesis using image-to-image translation techniques via conditional adversarial generative networks for generation of different hair occlusions in skin images, along with ground-truth mask for hair location. Hair-occluded image is synthesized using the latent structure of any input hair-free image by deep encoding the input image into a latent vector of features. The locations of required hair are highlighted using white pixels on the input image. Then, these deep encoded features are used to reconstruct the synthetic highly realistic hair-occluded image. Besides, we explored using three loss functions including L1-norm, L2-norm and structural similarity index (SSIM) to maximize the image synthesis visual quality. For the evaluation of the generated samples, the t-SNE feature mapping and Bland-Altman test are used as visualization tools for the experimental results. The results show the superior performance of our proposed method compared to previous methods for hair synthesis with plausible colours and preserving the integrity of the lesion texture. The proposed method can be used to generate benchmarking datasets for comparing the performance of digital hair removal methods. The code is available online at: https://github.com/attiamohammed/realhair.

Molecular characterization of a heat shock protein 21 (Hsp21) from red swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii in response to immune stimulation.

Small heat shock proteins are a molecular chaperone and implicated in various physiological and stress processes in animals. However, the immunological functions of Hsp genes remain to elucidate in the crustaceans, particularly in red swamp crayfish, Procambarus clarkii. Here we report the cloning of heat shock protein 21 from the P. clarkii (hereafter Pc-Hsp21). The open reading frame of Pc-Hsp21 was 555 base pairs, encoding a protein of 184 amino acid residues with an alpha-crystallin family domain. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis revealed a constitutive transcript expression of Pc-Hsp21 in the tested tissue, with the highest in hepatopancreas. The transcript abundance for this gene enhanced in hepatopancreas following immune challenge with the lipopolysaccharide, peptidoglycan, and poly I:C compared to the control group. The depletion of Pc-Hsp21 by double-stranded RNA altered transcript expression profiles of several genes in hepatopancreas, genes involved in the crucial immunological pathways of P. clarkii. These results suggest that Pc-Hsp21 plays an essential biological role in the microbial stress response by modulating the expression of immune-related genes in P. clarkii.

Digital hair segmentation using hybrid convolutional and recurrent neural networks architecture.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Skin melanoma is one of the major health problems in many countries. Dermatologists usually diagnose melanoma by visual inspection of moles. Digital hair removal can provide a non-invasive way to remove hair and hair-like regions as a pre-processing step for skin lesion images. Hair removal has two main steps: hair segmentation and hair gaps inpainting. However, hair segmentation is a challenging task which requires manual tuning of thresholding parameters. Hard-coded threshold leads to over-segmentation (false positives) which in return changes the textural integrity of lesions and or under-segmentation (false negatives) which leaves hair traces and artefacts which affect subsequent diagnosis. Additionally, dermal hair exhibits different characteristics: thin; overlapping; faded; occluded and overlaid on textured lesions. METHODS: In this presented paper, we proposed a deep learning approach based on a hybrid network of convolutional and recurrent layers for hair segmentation using weakly labelled data. We utilised the deep encoded features for accurate detection and delineation of hair in skin images. The encoded features are then fed into recurrent neural network layers to encode the spatial dependencies between disjointed patches. Experiments are conducted on a publicly available dataset, called "Towards Melanoma Detection: Challenge". We chose two metrics to evaluate the produced segmentation masks. The first metric is the Jaccard Index which penalises false positives and false negatives. The second metric is the tumour disturb pattern which assesses the overall effect over the lesion texture due to unnecessary inpainting as a result of over segmentation. The qualitative and quantitative evaluations are employed to compare the proposed technique with state-of-the-art methods. RESULTS: The proposed approach showed superior segmentation accuracy as demonstrated by a Jaccard Index of 77.8% in comparison to a 66.5% reported by the state-of-the-art method. We also achieved tumour disturb pattern as low as 14% compared to 23% for the state-of-the-art method. CONCLUSION: The hybrid architecture for segmentation was able to accurately delineate and segment the hair from the background including lesions and the skin using weakly labelled ground truth for training.

Haptic Collision Detection on Disjoint Objects with Overlapping and Inclusive Bounding Volumes.

This paper presents a method to alleviate performance degradation issues of Haptic Collision Detection when the Bounding Volumes or Bounding Volume Hierarchies of multiple disjoint objects are overlapping or inclusive and force the Haptic Collision Detection methods into narrow phase collision detection with all involved objects. The proposed method aims to generate tighter, mutually exclusive Bounding Volumes at the pre-processing stage, and to quickly cull irrelevant nearby objects at the broad phase to ensure that the Haptic Collision Detection methods will not be overloaded with unnecessary narrow phase collision detection. The proposed method is based on a hybrid representation of Bounding Volume and Space Partitioning and is implemented as an algorithm that automatically generates these new Bounding Volumes for disjoint objects, with details and corner cases discussed. A series of experiments based on real-life Haptic Collision Detection applications has been conducted. The results are analyzed and compared with those from an existing Haptic Collision Detection algorithm. The outcome demonstrates the capability of the proposed method in maintaining a stable Haptic Collision Detection performance under various challenging situations.

Mitochondrial genome of Diaphania indica(saunders) (Lepidoptera: Pyraloidea) and implications for its phylogeny.

The cucumber moth, Diaphania indica (Saunders) (Lepipdoptera: Pyralidae) is an economically important insect pest of cucurbits and is widely distributed in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Herein, we obtained entire mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequence of D. indica using polymerase chain reaction amplification and sequencing method. The complete mitogenome of D. indica is 15,367bp long, including 13 protein coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), two ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs) and an A+T rich element. Both the AT skew and GC skew are slightly negative in the newly sequenced mitogenome. All of the 12 PCGs initiate with canonical start codon (ATN), except for coxI that initiate with CGA. The A+T rich element of D. indica is 467bp long and contains many features common to Pyraloidea insects. In addition, we reconstructed phylogenetic relationships among the eight superfamiles of lepidopterans by employing Neighbor joining (NJ) and Maximum likelihood (ML) methods, and both yielded identical topologies. The phylogeny results supported the monophyly of lepidopteran superfamilies. Furthermore, phylogenetic tree showed that D. indica belongs to the Pyraloidea superfamily.

Exploration of organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites for surface-enhanced infrared spectroscopy of small molecules.

The organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites efficiently enhance the infrared absorption of small molecules. It is suggested that the quantum wells of perovskites enable the electrons of the perovskites to be excited by light in the infrared region. The exploration has opened a new path for chemical sensing through infrared spectroscopy.