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Oral cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide, especially in South Central Asia. It has been suggested that cancer stem cells (CSC) play crucial roles in tumor relapse and metastasis, and approaches to target CSC may lead to promising results. Here, aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 (ALDH1) and CD44 were utilized to isolate CSCs of oral cancer. Butylidenephthalide, a bioactive phthalide compound from Angelica sinensis, was tested for its anti-CSC effects. MTT assay showed that a lower concentration of butylidenephthalide was sufficient to inhibit the proliferation of patient-derived ALDH1+/CD44+ cells without affecting normal cells. Administration of butylidenephthalide not only reduced ALDH1 activity and CD44 expression, it also suppressed the migration, invasion, and colony formation abilities of ALDH1+/CD44+ cells using a transwell system and clonogenic assay. A patient-derived xenograft mouse model supported our in vitro findings that butylidenephthalide possessed the capacity to retard tumor development. We found that butylidenephthalide dose-dependently downregulated the gene and protein expression of Sox2 and Snail. Our results demonstrated that overexpression of Snail in ALDH1-/CD44- (non-CSCs) cells induced the CSC phenotypes, whereas butylidenephthalide treatment successfully diminished the enhanced self-renewal and propagating properties. In summary, this study showed that butylidenephthalide may serve as an adjunctive for oral cancer therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luminance contrast is one of the key factors in the visibility of objects in the world around us. Previous work has shown that the perceived depth from binocular disparity depends profoundly on the luminance contrast of the image. This dependence cannot be explained by existing disparity models, such as the well-established disparity energy model, because they predict no effect of luminance contrast on depth perception. Here, we develop a model for disparity processing that incorporates contrast normalization of the neural response into the disparity energy model to account for the contrast dependence of perceived depth from disparity. Our model contains an array of disparity channels, each with a different disparity selectivity. The binocular images are first processed by the left- and right-eye receptive fields of each channel. The outputs of the two receptive fields are combined linearly as the excitatory disparity sensitivity and then fed into a nonlinear contrast gain control mechanism. The perceived depth is determined by the weighted average of all the disparity channels that respond to the binocular images. This model provides the first analytic account of how luminance contrast affects perceived depth from disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard provides superior efficiency for encoding and improves the compression ratio by almost 50% compared with previous video coding standards, such as advanced video coding (AVC). However, more intensive computation complexity is introduced by implementing the flexible quad tree-structured coding model. In a typical HEVC encoder, coding units (CUs) in a coding tree unit (CTU) that is built as a quad-tree structure are recursively traversed each depth level (CU size) to select the optimal coding configuration. Therefore, most of the encoding time is spent searching for the optimal coding configuration. In this paper, an efficient and fast CU size decision algorithm is proposed to reduce HEVC encoder complexity by the spatiotemporal features. First, an adaptive depth-range prediction method minimizes the possible range depth level by observing previous frames and proximal CTUs. Second, an early termination method based on the boundary examination from the de-blocking filter (DBF) prevents unnecessary calculation on small CU sizes. Furthermore, according to the sum of absolution difference (SAD), a smooth area detection mechanism is triggered when the predictive depth range excludes the largest CU size. This mechanism increase the bitrate of the CU, which contains static objects with complex textures. Compared with the HM 16, the experimental results revealed that the proposed algorithm can achieve an average 59.73% and 64.98% reduction in encoding time along with a 0.68% and 1.27% Bjontegaard Delta bitrate (BDBR) penalty for various test videos under low-delay P and random-access conditions, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sorting is one of the most fundamental topics in computer science. Since partial sorting with lower costs would be much more feasible than the complete sorting method for some applications, this paper focuses on the architecture sorting N values from M inputs. To meet the real-time processing requirement, hardware acceleration is commonly employed to enhance the performance. However, high-speed computation usually raises power consumption drastically.To overcome that problem, a low-power, high-throughput, and modular hardware design of partial sorting network is presented. By applying a pointer-like design, the comparing modules move the indexes of samples instead of moving the input data directly. Power dissipation is reduced by minimizing switching activities and signal transitions. To prevent unnecessary comparing of the large data set, an iterative architecture is proposed which uses both the low-power sorting module and a novel clipping mechanism. The proposed design was simulated with a 90-nm cell library and the results are compared to those of other works on hardware sorting. Experiment results show that power consumption is reduced by 64.9 percent and high-throughput performance can also be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) is an effective method for analyzing nonlinear systems and nonstationary signals. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is the core of HHT. In this paper, a flexible, low cost, and high-performance silicon intellectual property (SIP) core for the EMD is proposed to meet the high-speed requirements of various EMD applications. Variables in the proposed EMD SIP are parameterized as much as possible. Using the proposed auxiliary software system, the EMD SIP generator, users can choose various precisions, data lengths, extrema extraction methods, envelope generation methods, stopping criterion methods, and computation units for different EMD applications. All circuits generated using the proposed EMD SIP generator can be operated at 200 MHz using the 90-nm cell library from the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), and they can be easily used for various applications and hardware architectures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Skeletal muscle is a major site of insulin action. Intramuscular lipid accumulation results in inflammation, which has a strong correlation with skeletal muscle insulin resistance (IR). The aim of this study was to explore the effects of linoleic acid, alpha-linolenic acid, and gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), 18-carbon polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), on palmitic acid (PA)-induced inflammatory responses and IR in C2C12 myotubes. Our data demonstrated that these three test 18-carbon PUFAs can inhibit PA-induced interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α messenger RNA (mRNA) expression and IR as evidenced by increases in phosphorylated AKT and the 160-kD AKT substrate, mRNA and plasma membrane protein expression of glucose transporter 4, and glucose uptake. Moreover, the 18-carbon PUFAs blocked the effects of PA on activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), protein kinase C-θ (PKC-θ), AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB). Of note, supplementation with GLA-rich borage oil decreased proinflammatory cytokine production and hindered the activation of MAPKs, PKC-θ and NF-κB in the skeletal muscles of diabetic mice. The 18-carbon PUFAs did not reverse PA-induced inflammation or IR in C2C12 myotubes transfected with a constitutively active mutant IκB kinase-β plasmid, which suggests the importance of the inhibition of NF-κB activation by the 18-carbon PUFAs. Moreover, blockade of AMPK activation by short hairpin RNA annulled the inhibitory effects of the 18-carbon PUFAs on PA-induced IR but not inflammation. Our findings suggest that the 18-carbon PUFAs may be useful in the management of PA-induced inflammation and IR in myotubes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual sensor networks (VSNs) have numerous applications in fields such as wildlife observation, object recognition, and smart homes. However, visual sensors generate vastly more data than scalar sensors. Storing and transmitting these data is challenging. High-efficiency video coding (HEVC/H.265) is a widely used video compression standard. Compare to H.264/AVC, HEVC reduces approximately 50% of the bit rate at the same video quality, which can compress the visual data with a high compression ratio but results in high computational complexity. In this study, we propose a hardware-friendly and high-efficiency H.265/HEVC accelerating algorithm to overcome this complexity for visual sensor networks. The proposed method leverages texture direction and complexity to skip redundant processing in CU partition and accelerate intra prediction for intra-frame encoding. Experimental results revealed that the proposed method could reduce encoding time by 45.33% and increase the Bjontegaard delta bit rate (BDBR) by only 1.07% as compared to HM16.22 under all-intra configuration. Moreover, the proposed method reduced the encoding time for six visual sensor video sequences by 53.72%. These results confirm that the proposed method achieves high efficiency and a favorable balance between the BDBR and encoding time reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(3-alkylthiophene)s (P3AT) areamong the most widely used conjugatedpolymers for applications in polymer solar cells and thin-film transistors.In this study, the influence of the casting solvent on the conformationalstructure and fluorescence properties of the isolated chains of aregioregular and a regiorandom poly(3-hexylthiophene) (denoted byrr-P3HT and ra-P3HT, respectively) has been systematically investigatedby single molecule spectroscopy. The isolated chains were dispersedin polystyrene matrix by casting from their ultradilute solutionswith tetrahydrofuran (THF) or toluene. ra-P3HT chains were found tocontain mostly high-energy emitting species with short conjugatinglength, while the low-energy emitting sites existed predominantlyin rr-P3HT chains irrespective of the casting solvent. The measurementof the modulation depth revealed that rr-P3HT chains cast from THFformed defect cylinder structure. The regioregular chains cast fromtoluene exhibited relatively regular folding to form rod structureas a result of the amplification of the segmental attraction in thepoorer solvent. The casting solvent had insignificant effect on theconformational structure of ra-P3HT, where the isolated chains predominantlyshowed defect coil conformation irrespective of the casting solvent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image scaling is an important technique that is widely used in many image processing applications. This paper presents a novel scaling algorithm for the implementation of 2-D image scalar. The proposed interpolation method is based on the interpolation error theorem often mentioned in numerical analysis. A bilateral error-amender is used to make the interpolation more precise, and an edge-weighted scheme enhances the edge features of the scaled images. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can obtain better performance than previous methods in both quantitative evaluation and visual quality. This paper also presents an efficient very large-scale integrated architecture for the proposed method. The cooperation and hardware sharing techniques greatly reduce hardware cost requirements. Using a nine-stage pipeline, the proposed scaling circuit contains 13 k gate counts and yields a processing rate of approximately 278 MHz using TSMC 0.13-\mum technology. The hardware cost of the proposed circuit is low, making it a good candidate for high-quality image scaling applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Fuzzy logic has been successfully applied to control vague, incomplete, complex, and ill-defined systems. With the help of fuzzy inference, an efficient inter-block/inter-frame fuzzy search (IIFS) algorithm for block motion estimation is proposed. By using the inter-block and inter-frame correlations, IIFS can determine the motion vectors of image blocks quickly and correctly. However, the IIFS algorithm is not suitable for hardware implementation due to very irregular data flow. Hence, in this paper we propose a modified inter-block/inter-frame fuzzy search (MIIFS) algorithm that can be easily realized with VLSI technology. With 0.6 μm CMOS technology, the MIIFS chip has a die size of 4.1×4.1 mm2 and 108 K transistors. It can work with a clock rate of 67 MHz, and yield a running speed that can support the MPEG video resolution (720 pixels × 480 lines, 30 frames/s) in real time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Proposes an efficient fuzzy search (EFS) algorithm for block motion estimation. Block-matching algorithm; EFS algorithm; Performance of EFS algorithm based on fuzzy reasoning in terms of picture quality, accuracy, computation complexity and coding efficiency in video imaging.

Presents information on a study which described an online data-compression method using arithmetic coding. Development of arithmetic coding; Tasks on arithmetic coding process; Conclusion.

Deals with a study which proposed an efficient search algorithm for block motion estimation. Discussion on the fuzzy prediction search algorithm and its hardware architecture; Experimental results and performance comparisons; Conclusion.

Background: Sesamin is a lignin present in sesame oil from the bark of Zanthoxylum spp. Sesamin reportedly has anticarcinogenic potential and exerts anti-inflammatory effects on several tumors. Hypothesis/Purpose: However, the effect of sesamin on metastatic progression in human head and neck squamous carcinoma (HNSCC) remains unknown in vitro and in vivo; hence, we investigated the effect of sesamin on HNSCC cells in vitro. Methods and Results: Sesamin-treated human oral cancer cell lines FaDu, HSC-3, and Ca9-22 were subjected to a wound-healing assay. Furthermore, Western blotting was performed to assess the effect of sesamin on the expression levels of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 and proteins of the MAPK signaling pathway, including p-ERK1/2, P-p38, and p-JNK1/2. In addition, we investigated the association between MMP-2 expression and the MAPK pathway in sesamin-treated oral cancer cells. Sesamin inhibited cell migration and invasion in FaDu, Ca9-22, and HSC-3 cells and suppressed MMP-2 at noncytotoxic concentrations (0 to 40 μM). Furthermore, sesamin significantly reduced p38 MAPK and JNK phosphorylation in a dose-dependent manner in FaDu and HSC-3 cells. Conclusions: These results indicate that sesamin suppresses the migration and invasion of HNSCC cells by regulating MMP-2 and is thus a potential antimetastatic agent for treating HNSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Image clustering involves the process of mapping an archive image into a cluster such that the set of clusters has the same information. It is an important field of machine learning and computer vision. While traditional clustering methods, such as k-means or the agglomerative clustering method, have been widely used for the task of clustering, it is difficult for them to handle image data due to having no predefined distance metrics and high dimensionality. Recently, deep unsupervised feature learning methods, such as the autoencoder (AE), have been employed for image clustering with great success. However, each model has its specialty and advantages for image clustering. Hence, we combine three AE-based models—the convolutional autoencoder (CAE), adversarial autoencoder (AAE), and stacked autoencoder (SAE)—to form a hybrid autoencoder (BAE) model for image clustering. The MNIST and CIFAR-10 datasets are used to test the result of the proposed models and compare the results with others. The results of the clustering criteria indicate that the proposed models outperform others in the numerical experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defogging is an essential preprocessing technique for object detection in computer vision-based systems and has been widely used in outdoor surveillance system applications. This paper proposes an efficient defogging algorithm for both static images and videos. Considering real-time applications, the proposed defogging algorithm involves a low-cost hardware oriented design that is based on an atmospheric scattering model and dark channel prior. Compared with previous low-complexity techniques, simulation results indicated that the proposed design demonstrated superior performance in terms of quantitative and qualitative evaluations. A weighting technique and a contour preserving estimation approach are adopted alternately to refine the factors in the defogging process. Furthermore, in the atmospheric light estimation, an adjuster is applied to the video for preventing “flicker” which means that the brightness changes dramatically between two neighbor frames in the video. Hence, the proposed algorithm is suitable for video defogging applications, which have not been dealt with in previous approaches. To achieve the requirement of real-time applications for both static and dynamic images, an implementation of seven-stage very-large-scale integration architecture for the proposed algorithm is presented. By using TSMC 0.13- $\mu {\mathrm{ m}}$ technology, the design yielded a processing rate of approximately 200 Mpixels/s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Color filter array interpolation, also known as demosaicking and “debayering,” is a crucial process for image reconstruction in digital still cameras. This paper presents an edge-oriented demosaicking method and an efficient very-large-scale integration (VLSI) architecture for color interpolation. The design uses simple operations (addition, subtraction, shift, and comparator) and nearest neighboring pixels to catch the color difference and edges. The required line buffering of the proposed design is four lines; therefore, its hardware cost is low. Our extensive experiments revealed that the proposed technique preserved edge features and exhibited excellent quantitative evaluation and visual quality performances. Compared with the previous VLSI implementations, the proposed design achieved superior image qualities. The synthesis results revealed that by using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ technology, the proposed design yields a processing rate of approximately 200M samples per second. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Whether oral lichen planus (OLP) was potentially malignant remains controversial. Here, we examined associations of ZNF582 methylation (ZNF582m) with OLP lesions, dysplastic features and squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Materials and Methods: This is a case–control study. ZNF582m was evaluated in both lesion and adjacent normal sites of 42 dysplasia, 90 OSCC and 43 OLP patients, whereas ZNF582m was evaluated only in one mucosal site of 45 normal controls. High‐risk habits affecting ZNF582m such as betel nut chewing and cigarette smoking were also compared in those groups. Results: OLP lesions showed significantly lower ZNF582m than those of dysplasia and OSCC. At adjacent normal mucosa, ZNF582m increased from patients of OLP, dysplasia, to OSCC. In addition, ZNF582m at adjacent normal sites in OLP patients was comparable to normal mucosa in control group. Dysplasia/OSCC patients with high‐risk habits exhibited significantly higher ZNF582m than those without high‐risk habits. However, ZNF582m in OLP patients was not affected by those high‐risk habits. Conclusions: OLP is unlikely to be potentially malignant based on ZNF582m levels. ZNF582m may also be a potential biomarker for distinguishing OLP from true dysplastic features and OSCC, and for monitoring the malignant transformation of OLP, potentially malignant disorders with dysplastic features and OSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monilinia fructicola (G. Winter) Honey is a devastating pathogen on Rosaceae which causes blossom blight and fruit rot. Only a few studies related to the plant-pathogen interaction have been published and there is limited knowledge on the relationship between oxidative stress and successful infection in M. fructicola. In this study, we cloned and characterized a redox-responsive transcription factor MFAP1, a YAP1 homologue. MfAP1-silenced strains were generated by polyethylene glycol-mediated protoplast transformation or Agrobacterium T-DNA-mediated transformation. Pathogenicity assay demonstrated that MfAP1-silenced strains caused smaller lesions on rose and peach petals. Transformants carrying extra copies of MfAP1, driven by the native promoter, were generated for MfAP1 overexpression. Interestingly, MfAP1-overexpressing strains also caused smaller lesions on rose petals. Strains carrying two copies of MfAP1 accumulated reactive oxygen species (ROS) at higher levels and exhibited delayed accumulation of MfAP1 transcripts compared with the wild-type during pathogenesis. By the analysis of ROS production and the expression patterns of redox- and virulence-related genes in the wild-type strain and an MfAP1-overexpressing strain, we found that the M. fructicola wild-type strain responded to oxidative stress at the infection site, activated the expression of MfAP1 and up-regulated the genes required for ROS detoxification and fungal virulence. In contrast, MfAP1 expression in the MfAP1-overexpressing strain was suppressed after the induction of a strong oxidative burst at the infection site, altering the expression of ROS detoxification and virulence-related genes. Our results highlight the importance of MfAP1 and ROS accumulation in the successful infection of M. fructicola. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Visual oral examination (VOE) is a conventional oral cancer screening method. This study aimed to evaluate the value of methylation marker to assist VOE in identifying oral epithelial dysplasia and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OED/OSCC) from non-cancerous lesions in a real-world situation. Methods: 201 patients with high-risk personal habits who self-perceived oral anomaly were VOE examined, ZNF582 methylation (ZNF582m) tested, and histologically diagnosed. Results: Among them, 132 patients (65.7%) were histologically diagnosed OED/OSCC. Using VOE, 56.1% OED/OSCC patients had possible oral cancer, whereas 37.7% non-OED/OSCC patients had leukoplakia. ZNF582m-positive was detected in 90.2% OED/OSCC patients and 44.9% non-OED/OSCC patients. Various logistic regression models were postulated to evaluate the diagnostic performance of conventional VOE and new strategies using ZNF582m. ROC analysis and its corresponding C-index demonstrated that either triage or co-testing models of VOE and ZNF582m could improve diagnostic performance and discriminative abilities compared with the VOE only approach. Conclusions: In conclusion, methylation marker test shows equivalent performance to an experienced judgment by oral maxillofacial surgeons and plays a significantly supplementary role in increasing the efficacy in identifying oral malignant lesions. ZNF582m may be an especially important tool for family physicians or general dentists to properly diagnose suspicious oral lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the broadcasting of signal countdown messages (SCMs) to vehicles via vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) technology has shown that it can reduce \CO2 emissions and energy consumption; however, past studies have lacked consideration of car following and vehicle gliding mode. In this paper, two green driving suggestion models, namely, the Maximize Throughput Model (MaxTM) and the Minimize Acceleration and Deceleration Model (MinADM), are proposed to minimize the \CO2 emissions by considering real-time traffic information nearby the intersection. The two proposed strategies are compared with an open traffic light control model (OTLCM) . The main facts this paper demonstrate are that traffic models lack consideration of car following, which would make the simulation result unrealistic, that the proposed MaxTM can reduce more \CO2 emissions than the MinADM and the OTLCM, and the total travel time in the MaxTM is also better than the other two models so that the general traffic performance can be improved. Simulation results show that the performance of \CO2 emissions of the MaxTM is 5%–102% better than the MinADM and 13%–209% better than the OTLCM in the simulation cases, and the performance of \CO2 emissions of the MaxTM is 8%–14% better than the MinADM and 15%–231% better than the OTLCM in the real traffic cases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this letter, a fast and efficient haze removal method is presented. We employ an extremum approximate method to extract the atmospheric light and propose a contour preserving estimation to obtain the transmission by using edge-preserving and mean filters alternately. Our method can efficiently avoid the halo artifact generated in the recovered image. To meet the requirement of real-time applications, an 11-stage pipelined hardware architecture for our haze removal method is presented. It can achieve 200 MHz with 12.8 K gate counts by using TSMC 0.13-\mum technology. Simulation results indicate that our design can obtain comparable results with the least execution time compared to previous algorithms and is suitable for low-cost high-performance hardware implementation for haze removal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Images are often corrupted by impulse noise in the procedures of image acquisition and transmission. In this paper, we propose an efficient denoising scheme and its VLSI architecture for the removal of random-valued impulse noise. To achieve the goal of low cost, a low-complexity VLSI architecture is proposed. We employ a decision-tree-based impulse noise detector to detect the noisy pixels, and an edge-preserving filter to reconstruct the intensity values of noisy pixels. Furthermore, an adaptive technology is used to enhance the effects of removal of impulse noise. Our extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique can obtain better performances in terms of both quantitative evaluation and visual quality than the previous lower complexity methods. Moreover, the performance can be comparable to the higher complexity methods. The VLSI architecture of our design yields a processing rate of about 200 MHz by using TSMC 0.18 μm technology. Compared with the state-of-the-art techniques, this work can reduce memory storage by more than 99 percent. The design requires only low computational complexity and two line memory buffers. Its hardware cost is low and suitable to be applied to many real-time applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dysbiosis of oral microbiome may dictate the progression of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Yet, the composition of oral microbiome fluctuates by saliva and distinct sites of oral cavity and is affected by risky behaviors (smoking, drinking and betel quid chewing) and individuals' oral health condition. To characterize the disturbances in the oral microbial population mainly due to oral tumorigenicity, we profiled the bacteria within the surface of OSCC lesion and its contralateral normal tissue from discovery (n = 74) and validation (n = 42) cohorts of male patients with cancers of the buccal mucosa. Significant alterations in the bacterial diversity and relative abundance of specific oral microbiota (most profoundly, an enrichment for genus Fusobacterium and the loss of genus Streptococcus in the tumor sites) were identified. Functional prediction of oral microbiome shown that microbial genes related to the metabolism of terpenoids and polyketides were differentially enriched between the control and tumor groups, indicating a functional role of oral microbiome in formulating a tumor microenvironment via attenuated biosynthesis of secondary metabolites with anti-cancer effects. Furthermore, the vast majority of microbial signatures detected in the discovery cohort was generalized well to the independent validation cohort, and the clinical validity of these OSCC-associated microbes was observed and successfully replicated. Overall, our analyses reveal signatures (a profusion of Fusobacterium nucleatum CTI-2 and a decrease in Streptococcus pneumoniae) and functions (decreased production of tumor-suppressive metabolites) of oral microbiota related to oral cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a stimulus with multiple moving elements, an observer may perceive that the whole stimulus moves in unison if (a) one can associate an element in one frame with one in the next (correspondence) and (b) a sufficient proportion of correspondences signal a similar motion direction (coherence). We tested the necessity of these two conditions by asking the participants to rate the perceived intensity of linear, concentric, and radial motions for three types of stimuli: (a) random walk motion, in which the direction of each dot was randomly determined for each frame, (b) random image sequence, which was a set of uncorrelated random dot images presented in sequence, and (c) global motion, in which 35% of dots moved coherently. The participants perceived global motion not only in the global motion conditions but also in the random image sequences, though not in random walk motion. The type of perceived motion in the random image sequences depends on the spatial context of the stimuli. Thus, although there is neither a fixed correspondence across different frames nor a coherent motion direction, observers can still perceive global motion in the random image sequence. This result cannot be explained by motion energy or local aperture border effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identified the correlations between the temperament types of infants and their cries evoked by external pain stimuli. We examined infant cries evoked by vaccinations and analyse the volume and types of audio frequency fluctuation of the cries. The Infant Temperament Questionnaire is filled out by the parents. Statistical analyses of t-tests and ANOVA were performed using the software SPSS 16.0. The intensity of infants' reactions varied significantly with their home environments (p <.01). Infants from noisier home environments reacted more intensely. Whether infants were breastfed significantly correlated with the rhythmicity of their physiological cycle (p =.046). Breastfed infants indicated a higher level of rhythmicity. The number of seconds taken by the parent to comfort the infant significantly correlated with the infants' persistence (p =.029). The types of cries significantly correlated with infants' distractibility (p =.028). Infants whose cries became softer were more difficult to distract. Infants whose cries became louder or remained steady were easier to distract. This study found that infants' cries evoked by external pain stimuli can be used to predict the home environment, the quality of mood and the types of infants' temperament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detecting changes in land use and land cover (LULC) from space has long been the main goal of satellite remote sensing (RS), yet the existing and available algorithms for cloud classification are not reliable enough to attain this goal in an automated fashion. Clouds are very strong optical signals that dominate the results of change detection if they are not removed completely from imagery. As various architectures of deep learning (DL) have been proposed and advanced quickly, their potential in perceptual tasks has been widely accepted and successfully applied to many fields. A comprehensive survey of DL in RS has been reviewed, and the RS community has been suggested to be leading researchers in DL. Based on deep residual learning, semantic image segmentation, and the concept of atrous convolution, we propose a new DL architecture, named CloudNet, with an enhanced capability of feature extraction for classifying cloud and haze from Sentinel-2 imagery, with the intention of supporting automatic change detection in LULC. To ensure the quality of the training dataset, scene classification maps of Taiwan processed by Sen2cor were visually examined and edited, resulting in a total of 12,769 sub-images with a standard size of 224 × 224 pixels, cut from the Sen2cor-corrected images and compiled in a trainset. The data augmentation technique enabled CloudNet to have stable cirrus identification capability without extensive training data. Compared to the traditional method and other DL methods, CloudNet had higher accuracy in cloud and haze classification, as well as better performance in cirrus cloud recognition. CloudNet will be incorporated into the Open Access Satellite Image Service to facilitate change detection by using Sentinel-2 imagery on a regular and automatic basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a numerical approach with an experimental validation is introduced for modelling high-speed metal grinding processes in 6061-T6 aluminum alloys. The derivation of the present numerical method starts with an establishment of a stabilized particle Galerkin approximation. A non-residual penalty term from strain smoothing is introduced as a means of stabilizing the particle Galerkin method. Additionally, second-order strain gradients are introduced to the penalized functional for the regularization of damage-induced strain localization problem. To handle the severe deformation in metal grinding simulation, an adaptive anisotropic Lagrangian kernel is employed. Finally, the formulation incorporates a bond-based failure criterion to bypass the prospective spurious damage growth issues in material failure and cutting debris simulation. A three-dimensional metal grinding problem is analyzed and compared with the experimental results to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed numerical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxidative stress-induced growth inhibitor 1 (OSGIN1), a tumor suppressor, inhibits cell proliferation and induces cell death. N-6 and n-3 PUFAs protect against breast cancer, but the molecular mechanisms of this effect are not clear. We investigated the effect of n-6 and n-3 PUFAs on OSGIN1 expression and whether OSGIN1 is involved in PUFA-induced apoptosis in breast cancer cells. We used 100 μM of n-6 PUFAs including arachidonic acid, linoleic acid, and gamma-linolenic acid and n-3 PUFAs including alpha-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Only DHA significantly induced OSGIN1 protein and mRNA expression. DHA triggered reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and nuclear translocation of Nrf2. LY294002, a PI3K inhibitor, suppressed DHA-induced OSGIN1 protein expression and nuclear accumulation of Nrf2. Nrf2 knockdown attenuated DHA-induced OSGIN1 expression. N -Acetyl- l -cysteine, a ROS scavenger, abrogated the DHA-induced increases in Akt phosphorylation, Nrf2 nuclear accumulation, and OSGIN1 expression. DHA induced the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, mitochondrial accumulation of OSGIN1 and p53, and cytochrome c release; knockdown of OSGIN1 diminished these effects. In conclusion, induction of OSGIN1 by DHA is at least partially associated with increased ROS production, which activates PI3K/Akt/Nrf2 signaling. Induction of OSGIN1 may be involved in DHA-induced apoptosis in breast cancer cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and sensor technology, electroencephalogram-based (EEG) emotion recognition has attracted extensive attention. Various deep neural networks have been applied to it and achieved excellent results in classification accuracy. Except for classification accuracy, the interpretability of the feature extraction process is also considerable for model design for emotion recognition. In this study, we propose a novel neural network model (DCoT) with depthwise convolution and Transformer encoders for EEG-based emotion recognition by exploring the dependence of emotion recognition on each EEG channel and visualizing the captured features. Then we conduct subject-dependent and subject-independent experiments on a benchmark dataset, SEED, which contains EEG data of positive, neutral, and negative emotions. For subject-dependent experiments, the average accuracy of three classification tasks is 93.83%. For subject-independent experiments, the average accuracy of three classification tasks is 83.03%. Additionally, we assess the importance of each EEG channel in emotional activities by the DCoT model and visualize it as brain maps. Furthermore, satisfactory results are obtained by utilizing eight selected crucial EEG channels: FT7, T7, TP7, P3, FC6, FT8, T8, and F8, both in two classification tasks and three classification tasks. Using a small number of EEG channels for emotion recognition can reduce equipment costs and computing costs, which is suitable for practical applications. • We proposed a novel neural network based on Transformer encoders and depthwise convolution for EEG-based emotion recognition. • Our model enhances the capability of extracting and fusing frequency-domain information while maintaining the independence between EEG channels. • The crucial EEG channels captured by the proposed model are visualized as brain maps in this work, and few existing works have done it. • Our model is much more interpretable than existing emotion recognition models by exploring the dependence of emotion recognition on each EEEG channel, which is useful in clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] To investigate I. suffruticosa extracts on expression of GSTP and NQO1 in hepatocytes. [•] Suffruticosa extracts increased GSTP and NQO1 levels and GSTP promoter activity in hepatocyte. [•] Suffruticosa extracts up-regulated binding affinity of Nrf2 with GPEI and ARE activation. [•] ERK inhibitor abolished I. suffruticosa extracts induced GSTP and NQO-1 expression. [•] Suffruticosa extracts increased GSH levels in mouse liver, RBC and hepatocytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Indigofera suffruticosa Mill is used as an herbal medicine for the treatment of inflammation. The aim of this study is to assess the anti-inflammatory potency of I. suffruticosa and its likely molecular mechanisms of action in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW 264.7 macrophages. Both water and ethanolic extracts of I. suffruticosa significantly decreased LPS-induced nitric oxide (NO) as well as the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), tumor necrosis factor-α, and pro-interleukin-1β. Moreover, LPS-induced inhibitory factor-κB-α phosphorylation, nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) nuclear protein–DNA binding affinity, and NF-κB reporter gene activity were dramatically inhibited by I. suffruticosa extracts. Exogenous addition of I. suffruticosa significantly induced heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression, and the presence of HO-1 small interfering RNA partly reversed the inhibitory effects of I. suffruticosa on LPS-induced NO production and iNOS expression. Furthermore, I. suffruticosa induced HO-1 expression may be through activation of the ERK/nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 pathway. Eight phenolic compounds were found in the I. suffruticosa extracts, but salicylic acid was the only one detected in the plasma of mice fed with I. suffruticosa extracts. In summary, I. suffruticosa have a strong anti-inflammatory property that diminishes pro-inflammatory mediator expressions by lessening LPS-induced NF-κB activation and inducing HO-1 expression in macrophages. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The main goal of this study was to investigate the applicability of parameters derived from diffusion tension imaging (DTI) in diagnosing carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Forty subjects were recruited, of which 19 were normal controls and 21 belonged to the CTS group. DTI of median nerves evaluated at 4 levels of the wrist (distal radius, pisiform bone, middle portion of the carpal tunnel, and hamate bone) and conventional MRI of the wrist was performed in normal and CTS subjects in two finger postures (extension and flexion). Fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) were derived from DTI, and parameters related to abnormal hyperintensity of the median nerve were derived from conventional MRI. Electrophysiological tests, including nerve conduction velocity and F wave were also performed for comparison. The results of FA and ADC measurements did not depend on the measuring location and finger posture. Mean FA was decreased while mean ADC was increased by CTS. FA and ADC at the middle portion of the carpal tunnel was 0.47±0.05 and 1.37±0.12 (×10−3 mm2/s) for the control group and 0.42±0.04 and 1.50±0.15 (×10−3 mm2/s) for the CTS group, respectively. The linear correlations of FA and ADC versus electrophysiological indicators of CTS were significant (R 2 ranged from 0.09 to 0.36), indicating FA and ADC from DTI had significant correlation with the existence and severity of CTS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]