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Detecting infrared (IR) small targets effectively and robustly is crucial for the tasks such as infrared searching and guarding. While methods based on the human vision system (HVS) have achieved great success in this field, detecting dim targets in complex backgrounds remains a challenge due to the multi-scale framework and over-simplified disparity calculations. In this paper, infrared small targets are detected with a novel local contrast measurement named double-layer patch-based contrast (DLPC). Firstly, we crafted an elaborated double-layer local contrast measure, to suppress the background, which can accurately measure the gray difference between the target and its surrounding complex background. Secondly, we calculated the absolute value of the grayscale difference between the target and the background in the diagonal directions as a weighting factor to further enhance the target. Then, an adaptive threshold on the DLPC was employed to extract the target from the IR image. The proposed method can detect small targets effectively with a fixed-scaled mask template while being computationally efficient. Experimental results in terms of background suppression factor (BSF), signal-to-clutter ratio gain (SCRG) and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve on five IR image datasets demonstrated that the proposed method has better detection performance compared to six state-of-the-art methods and is more robust in addressing complex backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of combined surgery (limited pars plana vitrectomy, anterior-chamber stabilized phacoemulsification, IOL implantation and posterior capsulotomy, LPPV + ACSP + IOL + PC) in complex nanophthalmos. (2) Methods: Patients with complex nanophthalmos were recruited to undergo LPPV + ACSP + IOL + PC from January 2017 to February 2021. Preoperative and post-operative intraocular pressure (IOP), best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), anterior chamber depth (ACD), and number of glaucoma medications were compared using the paired t-test or Wilcoxon signed rank sum tests. Surgical success rate was evaluated. Surgery-associated complications were documented. (3) Results: Forty-five eyes of 37 patients with complex nanophthalmos were enrolled. The mean follow-up period was 21.7 ± 10.6 months after surgery. Mean IOP decreased from 32.7 ± 8.7 mmHg before surgery to 16.9 ± 4.5 mmHg (p < 0.001) at the final follow-up visit, mean logMAR BCVA improved from 1.28 ± 0.64 to 0.96 ± 0.44 (p < 0.001), mean ACD significantly increased from 1.14 ± 0.51 mm to 3.07 ± 0.66 mm (p < 0.001), and the median number of glaucoma medications dropped from 3 (1, 4) to 2 (0, 4) (p < 0.001). The success rate was 88.9% (40 eyes) at the final follow-up visit. Two eyes had localized choroidal detachments which resolved with medical treatment. (4) Conclusions: LPPV + ACSP + IOL + PC is a safe and effective surgical procedure, which can decrease IOP, improve BCVA, deepen the anterior chamber, and reduce the number of glaucoma medications in patients with complex nanophthalmos. It can be considered as one of the first treatment in nanophthalmic eyes with complex conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engagement plays an essential role in the learning process. Recognition of learning engagement in the classroom helps us understand the student's learning state and optimize the teaching and study processes. Traditional recognition methods such as self-report and teacher observation are time-consuming and obtrusive to satisfy the needs of large-scale classrooms. With the development of big data analysis and artificial intelligence, applying intelligent methods such as deep learning to recognize learning engagement has become the research hotspot in education. In this paper, based on non-invasive classroom videos, first, a multi-cues classroom learning engagement database was constructed. Then, we introduced the power IoU loss function to You Only Look Once version 5 (YOLOv5) to detect the students and obtained a precision of 95.4%. Finally, we designed a bimodal learning engagement recognition method based on ResNet50 and CoAtNet. Our proposed bimodal learning engagement method obtained an accuracy of 93.94% using the KNN classifier. The experimental results confirmed that the proposed method outperforms most state-of-the-art techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hyperspectral images (HSIs) classification technique has received widespread attention in the field of remote sensing. However, how to achieve satisfactory classification performance in the presence of a large amount of noise is still a problem worthy of consideration. In this article, a local correntropy matrix (LCEM)-based spatial–spectral feature representation method is proposed for HSI classification. Motivated by the successful application of information-theoretic learning (ITL), we propose to adopt correntropy matrix to represent the spatial–spectral features of HSI. Specifically, the dimension reduction is first performed on the original hyperspectral data. Then, for each pixel, we select its local neighbors within a sliding window using cosine distance for the construction of the LCEM. In this way, each pixel can be characterized as an LCEM. Finally, all the correntropy matrices are fed into a support vector machine (SVM) for final classification. In addition, we also propose a novel way to determine the size of the local window based on standard deviation. Because the LCEM as the feature descriptor can characterize discriminative spatial–spectral features, the proposed method has shown great interclass separability and intraclass compactness. Compared with other advanced approaches, the proposed LCEM method has achieved competitive performance in both evaluation indexes and visual effects, especially when the training size is very small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new spectral‐spatial hyperspectral image (HSI) classification method called hierarchical broad learning system (HBLS) has been proposed in this paper. Specifically, it combines wavelet, broad learning system (BLS) and Gabor filters into a hierarchical structure. First of all, wavelet is used to reduce the observation noise of HSIs. Then BLS is adopted to acquire a set of pixelwise probability maps from the input data, and Gabor filters are used to explore spatial information by refining these probability maps. These two operations (BLS and Gabor filtering) are alternated to form a hierarchical architecture. And the discriminative spectral‐spatial features can be extracted at each layer of the hierarchical architecture. Finally, the spectral‐spatial features are fed into the standard BLS for classification. Experimental results on three widely used HSIs reveal that HBLS outperforms some state‐of‐the‐art methods in terms of classification accuracy and sample complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Dickkopf 1 (DKK1) functions as a natural antagonist of the canonical Wnt/β-catenin pathway. The purpose of this study was to examine the expression of DKK1 in vitreous samples of patients with pathological myopia, in order to search for possible correlations between DKK1 and axial length. Materials and Methods: The expression of DKK1 and other cytokines in vitreous samples of 44 non-myopic eyes, 42 eyes with low-to-moderate myopia, and 51 eyes with pathological myopia were examined using multiplex cytokine detection technology. Ophthalmologic characteristics, including axial length and subfoveal choroidal thickness, were clinically measured for further analysis. Results: The intravitreous levels of DKK1 (P <.0001) were markedly higher in the pathological myopia group than in the control group. There were no differences of DKK1 levels in different vitreoretinal conditions. Additionally, we found that the DKK1 levels were positively correlated with HGF (β = 0.268, P =.032), and TIMP-3 (β = 0.209, P =.047) levels, as well as with axial length (β = 0.714, P <.0001) in the pathological myopia group. Conclusions: Elevated levels of DKK1 were found in the eyes with elongated axial length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study assessed changes in macular capillary vessel density and thickness associated with ocular silicone oil tamponade (SOT) following complex vitreoretinal surgery. A total of 23 patients who underwent pars plana vitrectomy combined with intravitreal SOT were retrospectively enrolled, and a single eye was assessed in each participant. Furthermore, 20 patients who required silicone oil removal (SOR) were included. The macular capillary vessel density and the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area were analyzed using optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and retinal thickness was assessed by OCT. The results demonstrated that the macular capillary vessel density of the superficial capillary plexus (SCP) and deep capillary plexus (DCP), the FAZ area and full retinal thickness were retained at a stable level following SOT (P>0.05), and also following SOR (P>0.05). Furthermore, the parafoveal (P=0.008), superior-hemi (P=0.007), temporal (P=0.015), superior (P=0.028) and nasal (P=0.002) inner retinal thickness decreased in the SOT group, whereas the inner retinal thickness was unaltered after SOR vs. baseline (P>0.05). In conclusion, silicone oil has no significant effect on macular capillary vessel density within a 6-month period but may compress and reduce the thickness of the inner retina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive engagement involves mental and physical involvement, with observable behaviors as indicators. Automatically measuring cognitive engagement can offer valuable insights for instructors. However, object occlusion, inter-class similarity, and intra-class variance make designing an effective detection method challenging. To deal with these problems, we propose the Object-Enhanced–You Only Look Once version 8 nano (OE-YOLOv8n) model. This model employs the YOLOv8n framework with an improved Inner Minimum Point Distance Intersection over Union (IMPDIoU) Loss to detect cognitive engagement. To evaluate the proposed methodology, we construct a real-world Students' Cognitive Engagement (SCE) dataset. Extensive experiments on the self-built dataset show the superior performance of the proposed model, which improves the detection performance of the five distinct classes with a precision of 92.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing student body gesture has been widely used to assess teaching effectiveness over the past few decades. However, manual observation is not suitable for the automatic data analysis in the field of learning analytics. Consequently, a student body gesture recognition method based on Fisher Broad Learning System (FBLS) and Local Log-Euclidean Multivariate Gaussian (L2EMG) is proposed in this paper. FBLS is designed by introducing the discriminative information into the hidden layer of Broad Learning System (BLS) and reducing the dimensionality of hidden-layer representations. FBLS has superiorities in accuracy and speed. In addition, L2EMG, which is a highly distinctive descriptor, characterizes the local image with a multivariate Gaussian distribution. So L2EMG features are fed into the FBLS for recognition in this paper. Extensive experimental results on self-built dataset show that the proposed student body gesture recognition method obtains better results than other benchmarking methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Video conferencing learning offers a more accessible and flexible learning mode for students who cannot attend face‐to‐face class in person. However, research about the video conferencing learning is still lacked, especially for students' engagement in this setting. Objectives: This study adopts the self‐system model of motivational development to uncover effects of the video conferencing learning environment (VCLE) to students' engagement. Methods: Two hundred and ninety‐eight primary school students involved in the VCLE were surveyed. The partial least square structural equation modelling was employed to explore the link between the VCLE and students' engagement with a mediating role of basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS). Results and Conclusions: Results showed that the BPNS played a mediating role in the processes from the VCLE to engagement. Both pedagogical and social affordance had a significant effect on the BPNS. However, their influences were different. Specifically, pedagogical affordance yielded a stronger effect on the BPNS for autonomy than social affordance. The predicting power of social affordance on BPNS for relatedness and competence was stronger than pedagogical affordance. Generally, social affordance yielded more contributions to behavioral and emotional engagement than pedagogical affordance. Moreover, BPNS for competence was the only significant mediator between the VCLE and behavioral engagement, and it owned the strongest mediating power on the relationship between the VCLE and emotional engagement, followed by autonomy, and the smallest of relatedness. This study suggests that practitioners and researchers should give more consideration to improve social affordance of the VCLE and to meet students' BPNS especially for competence in order to design and implement an engaged video conferencing course. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Video conferencing learning provides an accessible and flexible learning mode.Mechanism from learning environment to engagement is helpful to design an engaged video conferencing course.Less is known about how video conferencing learning affects students' engagement. What the paper adds: This study uncovered the functioning process of video conferencing learning to students' engagement.PLS‐SEM was employed to verify the mediating role of BPNS in this process.BPNS for autonomy, competence, and relatedness played mediating roles and their powers were different. Implications for practice and/or policy: More attention is needed to improve to social affordance to enhance students' emotional engagement.BPNS especially for competence deserves special consideration to improve students' behavioral and emotional engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most studies, the major supplement docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is administered orally or intraperitoneally. In this study, we proposed to assess the safety and efficacy of the intravitreal injection of DHA in an age-related macular degeneration (AMD) rat model. Different concentrations of DHA were injected into the vitreous body. Histopathology and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL) analysis showed that there was no difference in thickness, observable structure, or apoptosis among the untreated, normal saline, and DHA groups (0.2, 1.0, 5.0 and 10 μg). However, GFAP expression was increased in the 10 μg group. To investigate whether intravitreal injection of DHA could protect photoreceptors, we developed a NaIO 3 -induced retinal damage model in adult rats. Decreases in deformation and thickness were observed in the outer nuclear layer (ONL) after NaIO 3 administration but were improved with DHA injection. The NaIO 3 group showed a substantial reduction in the number of nuclei in ONL, whereas the DHA group showed an increase. Additionally, significant increases in SOD activity and Nrf2 expression were observed after DHA injection; GFAP and NF-κB expression levels were markedly decreased by DHA injection. Moreover, Western blotting showed that Bax, cleaved caspase-3 and CHOP were notably increased in the NaIO 3 group but were significantly decreased by DHA injection. Collectively, intravitreal injection of DHA is safe and effective in select doses in a NaIO 3 -induced AMD rat model. The current results suggest that intravitreal injection of DHA may be a new avenue for the treatment of AMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrared (IR) small target detection plays an important role in IR guidance systems. In this paper, a biologically inspired method called multiscale patch-based contrast measure (MPCM) is proposed for small IR target detection. MPCM can increase the contrast between target and background, which makes it easy to segment small target by simple adaptive thresholding method. Experimental results on three sequences demonstrate that the proposed small target detection method can not only suppress background clutter effectively even if with strong noise interference, but also detect targets accurately with low false alarm rate and high speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the major cause of loss of sight globally. There is currently no effective treatment available. Retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells are an important part of the outer blood-retina barrier and their death is a determinant of AMD. Propofol, a common clinically used intravenous anesthetic agent, has been shown to act as an efficacious neuroprotective agent with antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties in vivo and in vitro. However, little is known about its effects on RPE cells. The purpose of our research was to investigate whether propofol could protect RPE cells from apoptosis through endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress–dependent pathways. To this end, prior to stimulation with thapsigargin (TG), ARPE-19 cells were pretreated with varying concentrations of propofol. A protective effect of propofol in TG-treated ARPE-9 was apparent, TUNEL and flow cytometric assays showed decreased apoptosis. We further demonstrated that propofol pretreatment attenuated or inhibited the effects caused by TG, such as upregulation of Bax, BiP, C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP), active caspase 12, and cleaved caspase 3, and downregulation of Bcl2. It also decreased the TG-induced levels of ER stress–related molecules such as p-PERK, p-eIF2α, and ATF4. Furthermore, it downregulated the expression of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB). This study elucidated novel propofol-induced cellular mechanisms for antiapoptotic activities in RPE cells undergoing ER stress and demonstrated the potential value of using propofol in the treatment of AMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small infrared (IR) target detection is an important and challenging issue in IR target tracking system. In this paper, a patch ordering-based method is proposed for small IR target detection in an image with complicated background. Inspired by the contrast mechanism of human vision system, a patch ordering-based contrast measure (POCM) is designed to deal with the input image, which cannot only suppress the background noise and clutter but also enhance the targets significantly. In this way, POCM can increase the contrast ratio between target and background. This leads to higher Signal Clutter Ratio (SCR). Then the true target can be detected by applying simple adaptive thresholding method. The experimental results on two sequences show that the proposed method can efficiently detect small IR target from heavy clutter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the capabilities of functional data feature extraction technique are combined with the advantages of kernel extreme learning machine (KELM), to develop an effective hyperspectral image (HSI) classification method. In the proposed method, the hyperspectral pixels are firstly represented by functions. Each pixel in the HSI is processed from the perspective of function rather than high-dimensional vector. These functional representations are transformed to a lower dimensionality feature space using functional principal components analysis (FPCA). And then the obtained lower dimensional representations are processed by a multiclass KELM classifier. Experimental results on two HSI datasets show that the proposed method provides a relatively promising performance compared with other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the Ahmed glaucoma valve (AGV) and the risk factors associated with AGV implantation failure in a population of Chinese patients with refractory glaucoma. Method: In total, 79 eyes with refractory glaucoma from 79 patients treated in our institution from November 2007 to November 2010 were enrolled in this retrospective study. The demographic data, preoperative and postoperative intraocular pressures (IOPs), best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), number of anti-glaucoma medications used, completed and qualified surgery success rates and postoperative complications were recorded to evaluate the outcomes of AGV implantation. Factors that were associated with implant failure were determined using Cox proportional hazard regression model analysis and multiple linear regression analysis. Principle Findings: The average follow-up time was 12.7±5.8 months (mean±SD). We observed a significant reduction in the mean IOP from 39.9±12.6 mm Hg before surgery to 19.3±9.6 mm Hg at the final follow-up. The complete success rate was 59.5%, and the qualified success rate was 83.5%. The number of previous surgeries was negatively correlated with qualified success rate (P<0.05, OR=0.736, 95% CI 0.547-0.99). Patients with previous trabeculectomy were more likely to use multiple anti-glaucoma drugs to control IOP (P<0.01). The primary complication was determined to be a flat anterior chamber (AC). Conclusion: AGV implantation was safe and effective for the management of refractory glaucoma. Patients with a greater number of previous surgeries were more likely to experience surgical failure, and patients with previous trabeculectomy were more likely to use multiple anti-glaucoma drugs to control postoperative IOP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background suppression is vitally important for the small target detection, which aims to enhance targets and improve the signal‐to‐noise ratio of small target images. Consequently, the study proposes a background suppression approach based on the fast local reverse entropy operator, which is designed according to the fact that the appearance of a small target could result in the great change of the value of local reverse entropy in the local region. The operator is adopted to suppress complex backgrounds of small target images in order to enhance small targets, and then bring about high probabilities of detection and low probabilities of false alarm in the small target detection. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses contribute to confirm the validity and efficiency of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] A weighted self-information map is proposed to overcome the target growing effect. [•] The seed point and stopping criterion are selected automatically in the improving region growing technique. [•] The presented approach yields high detection probability and low false alarm probability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recently, derived kernel method which is a hierarchical learning method and leads to an effective similarity measure has been proposed by Smale. It can be used in a variety of application domains such as object recognition, text categorization and classification of genomic data. The templates involved in the construction of the derived kernel play an important role. To learn more effective similarity measure, a new template selection method is proposed in this paper. In this method, the redundancy is reduced and the label information of the training images is used. In this way, the proposed method can obtain compact template sets with better discrimination ability. Experiments on four standard databases show that the derived kernel based on the proposed method achieves high accuracy with low computational complexity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) is mainly caused by retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cell migration, invasion, proliferation and transformation into fibroblast-like cells that produce the extracellular matrix (ECM). The vitreous humor is known to play an important role in PVR. An epithelial-to-mesenchymal transdifferentiation (EMT) of human RPE cells induced by 25% vitreous treatment has been linked to stimulation of the mesenchymal phenotype, migration and invasion. Here, we characterized the effects of the vitreous on the cell morphology and cytoskeleton in human RPE cells. The signaling pathway that mediates these effects was investigated. Serum-starved RPE cells were incubated with 25% vitreous, and the morphological changes were examined by phase-contrast microscopy. Filamentous actin (F-actin) was examined by immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy. Protein phosphorylation of AKT, ERK1/2, Smad2/3, LIM kinase (LIMK) 1 and cofilin was analyzed by Western blot analysis. Vitreous treatment induced cytoskeletal rearrangements, activated Rac1 and enhanced the phosphorylation of AKT, ERK1/2 and Smad2/3. When the cells were treated with a Rac activation-specific inhibitor, the cytoskeletal rearrangements were prevented, and the phosphorylation of Smad2/3 was blocked. Vitreous treatment also enhanced the phosphorylation of LIMK1 and cofilin and the Rac inhibitor blocked this effect. We propose that vitreous-transformed human RPE cells undergo cytoskeletal rearrangements via Rac1 GTPase-dependent pathways that modulate LIMK1 and cofilin activity. The TGFβ-like activity of the vitreous may participate in this effect. Actin polymerization causes the cytoskeletal rearrangements that lead to the plasticity of vitreous-transformed RPE cells in PVR. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents an algorithm for detecting and tracking dim moving target in IR image sequence with low SNR. The algorithm, which is designed based on the locality preserving projection, accepts tensors as inputs. The justification for the algorithm comes from the role of the generalized eigenvalue problem in providing an optimal embedding for the manifold. Not only does the proposed method inherit the attractive characteristics of the locality preserving projections in terms of exploiting the intrinsic manifold structure, it is also appealing in terms of significant reduction in both space complexity and time complexity. Experimental results on two IR image sequences demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Deep learning is now receiving widespread attention in hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. However, due to the imbalance between a huge number of weights and limited training samples, many problems and difficulties have arisen from the use of deep learning methods in HSI classification. To handle this issue, an efficient deep learning-based HSI classification method, namely, spatial-aware network (SANet) has been proposed in this paper. The main idea of SANet is to exploit discriminative spectral-spatial features by incorporating prior domain knowledge into the deep architecture, where edge-preserving side window filters are used as the convolution kernels. Thus, SANet has a small number of parameters to optimize. This makes it fit for small sample sizes. Furthermore, SANet is able not only to aware local spatial structures using side window filtering framework, but also to learn discriminative features making use of the hierarchical architecture and limited label information. The experimental results on four widely used HSI data sets demonstrate that our proposed SANet significantly outperforms many state-of-the-art approaches when only a small number of training samples are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: To introduce a modified technique for primary/secondary intraocular lens (IOL) fixation without corneal incision in vitrectomized eyes. Methods: Consecutive case series who had undergone previous or concomitant pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) to have primary/secondary IOL fixation were prospectively included. A self-sealing scleral incision was made underneath the superior scleral flap, through which the IOL was inserted into the anterior chamber. The suture tied with the IOL passed through the sclera to fix the IOL in the ciliary sulcus. Patients were followed up for at least 3 months. Main outcomes were best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), intraocular pressure (IOP), surgically induced astigmatism (SIA), and intraoperative and postoperative complications. Results: A total of 31 patients were included in the study. The mean follow-up time was 5.35 ± 4.14 months. The BCVA (log MAR unit) improved from 0.97 ± 0.58 preoperative to 0.42 ± 0.36 postoperative (P < 0.001). Mean IOP remained unchanged (preoperative IOP 14.03 ± 2.90 mmHg, postoperative IOP 13.26 ± 3.46 mmHg, P = 0.130). The mean SIA was 0.91 ± 0.76 diopters. No obvious intraoperative and postoperative complications were observed. Conclusion: This method has favorable postoperative visual recovery and IOP control. This modified method could be taken into account as an option by surgeons in vitreoretinal surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a new method for hyperspectral images (HSI) classification, aiming to take advantage of both manifold learning-based feature extraction and neural networks by stacking layers applying locality sensitive discriminant analysis (LSDA) to broad learning system (BLS). BLS has been proven to be a successful model for various machine learning tasks due to its high feature representative capacity introduced by numerous randomly mapped features. However, it also produces redundancy, which is indiscriminate and finally lowers its performance and causes heavy computing demand, especially in cases of the input data bearing high dimensionality. In our work, a manifold learning method is integrated into the BLS by inserting two LSDA layers before the input layer and output layer separate, so the spectral-spatial HSI features are fully utilized to acquire the state-of-the-art classification accuracy. The extensive experiments have shown our method's superiority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statement: The current article has not been published elsewhere and has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere. Purpose: To investigate the preliminary use of three-dimensional (3D) heads-up display (HUD) viewing system for vitreoretinal surgery under various status. Materials and Methods: Nonrandomized case-control study. Consecutive cases to have vitreoretinal surgery under various status were prospectively recruited. Twenty-five-gauge vitrectomy platform and 3D viewing system were used. Main outcomes included: luminous emittance (lux) of endoillumination pipe, surgical duration, the surgeon and residents' preference and ergonomics. Consecutive patients to have vitreoretinal surgery with the conventional viewing system were recruited as control group following the same inclusion and exclusion criteria and underwent surgeries by the same surgeon with the same microscope and vitrectomy platform. Results: Thirty-one patients (31 eyes; Group Study) and twenty-eight patients (28 eyes; Group Control) were included; without significantly statistical difference in terms of age, gender, main diagnosis, surgical duration, and difficulty rating between both groups (all P > 0.05). Lower endoillumination intensity was needed in Group Study than that in Group Control (10% vs. 35%; 598.7 ± 5.4 vs. 1913.0 ± 12.9 lux, P < 0.001). The surgeon and residents expressed overwhelming preference with the 3D system in both groups. Improved ergonomic was rated in Group Study (4.4 ± 0.8 vs. 3.2 ± 1.0, P < 0.001). Some intraoperative difficulties and discomforts appeared to the surgeon and assistants when using the 3D viewing system. Conclusion: Vitreoretinal surgery under various status can be well finished with the HUD platform by novice at the system. Main benefits included lower endoillumination intensity, enhanced users' preference, and improved ergonomics. Some further refinements of the system are expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A detailed analysis of the tomographic thickness of intraretinal layers may provide more information on neurodegeneration in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD).Objective: The goal was to analyze tomographic thickness patterns of intraretinal layers in patients with AD andMCI.Method: Forty-nine patients (25 AD and 24 MCI) and 21 cognitively normal (CN) controls were imaged using ultra-high-resolution optical coherence tomography to obtain volumetric data centered on the fovea. The segmented intraretinal layers were retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), ganglion cell- inner plexiform layer (GCIPL), inner nuclear layer (INL), outer nuclear layer (ONL), outer plexiform layer (OPL), and retinal photoreceptor (PR), in addition to the total retinal thickness(TRT).Results: The thickness differences were negative (thinning) mainly in TRT, RNFL, and GCIPL in both AD and MCI groups in comparison to CN, while the thickness differences were positive (thickening) mainly in ONL and PR in AD. GCIPL of AD and MCI was thinner in superior, nasal superior, and temporal superior quadrants, compared to CN (p < 0.05). GCIPL of the inner superior, inner nasal superior, inner temporal superior, and outer nasal superior sectors was significantly thinner in AD than CN (p < 0.05). GCIPL of the outer superior, inner temporal superior, outer nasal, and temporal superior sectors was significantly thinner in MCI than CN (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Focal thinning of the GCIPL was visualized and quantified by detailed partitions in AD and MCI, which provides specific information about neurodegeneration in MCI and AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To determine the prevalence of peripheral retinopathy and its associated risk factors among a sample of Guangzhou office computer workers. Methods. A cross-sectional study of Guangzhou Chinese computer workstations and operators in different departments and units of the Guangzhou Power Supply Bureau, China, in 2016. Peripheral retinopathy was recorded and analyzed using a scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO; Optos, Daytona, United Kingdom) and slit-lamp microscopy combined with a three-mirror contact lens. Results. The 1934 eyes of 967 subjects (513 females and 454 males) were included in this study. In total, 79.1% of the eyes were myopic in workers aged 20–29 years, 72.9% in workers aged 30–39 years, 62.2% in workers aged 40–49 years, and 43.4% in workers aged 50–59 years (p<0.001). Most eyes had optic nerve crescents (81.3%). Various peripheral degenerations were found: 7 eyes (0.4%) had microcystoid degeneration, 40 (2.1%) had peripheral pigmentary degeneration, 87 (4.5%) had lattice degeneration, and 4 (0.2%) had snail-track degeneration. Nineteen (1.0%) eyes had paving-stone degeneration, 11 (0.6%) eyes had a retinal hole or tear, and 16 (0.8%) eyes had chorioretinal degeneration. Multivariate regression confirmed that greater axial length (OR: 1.18 (1.03, 1.35), p=0.012) and more serious spherical equivalent (OR: 0.82 (0.77, 0.88), p<0.001) were significant risk factors for peripheral retinal changes. Conclusion. Peripheral retinal degenerative changes were found in a larger proportion of younger computer workers than older ones. Myopia is occurring in younger and younger people, accompanied by peripheral retinal degeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrared (IR) small target detection plays an important role in the field of image detection area owing to its intrinsic characteristics. This paper presents a multiscale local homogeneity measure (MLHM) for infrared small target detection, which can enhance the performance of IR small target detection system. Firstly, intra-patch homogeneity of the target itself and the inter-patch heterogeneity between target and the local background regions are integrated to enhance the significant of small target. Secondly, a multiscale measure based on local regions is proposed to obtain the most appropriate response. Finally, an adaptive threshold method is applied to small target segmentation. Experimental results on three different scenarios indicate that the MLHM has good performance under the interference of strong noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a reliability estimation approach based on EM algorithm and Wiener processes by considering measurement errors. Firstly, the time-transformed Wiener processes are used to model the degradation process of the product, which simultaneously consider the temporal variability, unit-to-unit heterogeneity and measurement errors. In addition, we obtain the closed-form expressions of some reliability quantities such as reliability function and probability density function of the life. Moreover, the expectation maximization algorithm is adopted to estimate the model parameters effectively. Finally, a numerical example and a practical case study for LED lamps are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the presented approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study was to determine the retinal blood flow rate (BFR) and blood flow velocity (BFV) of pre-capillary arterioles and post-capillary venules in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Forty patients (20 AD and 20 MCI) and 21 cognitively normal (CN) controls with a similar age range (± 5 yrs) were recruited. A retinal function imager (RFI) was used to measure BFRs and BFVs of arterioles and venules in the macular region. The thickness of the ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (GCIPL) was measured using Zeiss Cirrus optical coherence tomography. Macular BFRs in AD group were 2.64 ± 0.20 nl/s (mean ± standard deviation) in arterioles and 2.23 ± 0.19 nl/s in venules, which were significantly lower than in MCI and CN groups (P < 0.05). In addition, BFRs in MCI were lower than in CN in both arterioles and venules (P < 0.05). The BFV of the arterioles was 3.20 ± 1.07 mm/s in AD patients, which was significantly lower than in CN controls (3.91 ± 0.77 mm/s, P = 0.01). The thicknesses of GCIPL in patients with AD and MCI were significantly lower than in CN controls (P < 0.05). Neither BFV nor BFR in arterioles and venules was related to age, GCIPL thickness, mini mental state examination (MMSE) score and disease duration in patients with AD and MCI (P > 0.05). The lower BFR in both arterioles and venules in AD and MCI patients together with the loss of GCIPL were evident, indicating the impairment of the two components in the neurovascular-hemodynamic system, which may play a role in disease progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preoperative crystalline lens tilt and decentration showed strong predictive ability for postoperative clinically significant tilt and decentration of the intraocular lens in vitrectomized eyes. Purpose: To identify predictors and develop a prognostic nomogram for clinically significant intraocular lens (IOL) tilt and decentration in vitrectomized eyes. Setting: Zhongshan ophthalmic center, Guangzhou, China. Design: Prospective observational study. Methods: Patients with previous pars plana vitrectomy who underwent phacoemulsification with IOL implantation were enrolled in this study. The tilt and decentration of the lens and IOL were assessed by a swept-source anterior segment optical coherence tomography (CASIA2). Multiple logistic regression analysis and prognostic nomogram models were used to explore factors associated with clinically significant IOL tilt and decentration (defined as tilt ≥7 degrees and decentration ≥0.4 mm). Results: 375 patients (375 eyes) with a mean age of 56.1 ± 9.81 years were included. Lens tilt (odds ratio [OR] = 1.44), lens decentration (OR = 1.74), lens diameter (OR = 0.49), and hydrophilic IOL (OR = 2.36) were associated with IOL tilt over 7 degrees (all P <.05). Lens tilt (OR = 1.24), lens decentration (OR = 2.30), and incomplete capsulorhexis–IOL overlap (OR = 2.44) increased the risk of IOL decentration over 0.4 mm (all P <.05). Preoperative lens tilt together with lens decentration was identified as the strongest predictor of incident clinically significant IOL tilt (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.82, 95% CI, 0.76-0.88) and decentration (AUC: 0.84, 95% CI, 0.78-0.89), and the nomogram was constructed accordingly. Conclusions: The tilt and decentration of the crystalline lens, hydrophilic IOL, and incomplete capsulorhexis–IOL overlap were risk factors for clinically significant IOL misalignment. Clinicians could use a prognostic nomogram model based on the preoperative lens position to make a strategy for higher-risk patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Previous observational studies have suggested a relationship between central corneal thickness (CCT) and glaucoma; however, the results are inconsistent. This study aimed to investigate whether CCT is associated with a risk for developing open-angle glaucoma (OAG). We employed two-sample Mendelian randomization to assess the relationship between CCT and OAG, namely, primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and suspected glaucoma. Genetic instruments composed of variants associated with CCT at genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10−8) were obtained from published genome-wide association studies from Iglesias et al. for discovery and Bonnemaijer et al. for replication. Summary-level statistics for these instruments for the OAG were obtained from the FinnGen Project (Release 10). Inverse-variance-weighted regression of genetic susceptibility predicted that increased CCT was positively associated with an increased risk for POAG (odds ratio [OR], 1.005; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.002–1.008; P = 0.001) and suspected glaucoma (OR, 1.006; 95% CI, 1.003–1.009; P < 0.001). In the replication sample of CCT, increased CCT was also positively associated with an increased risk for POAG (OR, 1.004; 95% CI, 1.000–1.008; P = 0.029) and suspected glaucoma (OR, 1.005; 95% CI, 1.001–1.008; P = 0.013). We found genetic evidence supporting a potential causal association between increased CCT and the risk of POAG and suspected glaucoma in the European population. This findings indicates the clinical significance of CCT in the diagnosis and treatment of glaucoma. Further studies are needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of this causal relationship. • Investigated whether CCT is associated with a risk for developing OAG. • Genetic evidence for causative relationship of CCT with POAG risk. • Causative link also found with suspected glaucoma risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Image similarity measure has been widely used in pattern recognition and computer vision. We usually face challenges in terms of rotation and scale changes. In order to overcome these problems, an effective similarity measure which is invariant to rotation and scale is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the proposed method applies the log-polar transform to eliminate the rotation and scale effect and produces a row and column translated log-polar image. Then the obtained log-polar image is passed to hierarchical kernels to eliminate the row and column translation effects. In this way, the output of the proposed method is invariant to rotation and scale. The theoretical analysis of invariance has also been given. In addition, an effective template sets construction method is presented to reduce computational complexity and to improve the accuracy of the proposed similarity measure. Through the experiments with several image data sets we demonstrate the advantages of the proposed approach: high classification accuracy and fast. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There have been different approaches to compute the analytic instantaneous frequency with a variety of background reasoning and applicability in practice, as well as restrictions. This paper presents a new non-analytic instantaneous frequency definition for a large class of so-called simple waves. Simple wave contains a wide range of signals for which the concept instantaneous frequency has a perfect physical sense. There are a number of automatic sleep spindle detection methods in the literature, however, due to the complexity of the sleep spindle characteristics from different people and absence of generally accepted sleep spindle definition in the literature, researchers are still exploring more practically acceptable and workable methods. A novel instantaneous frequency definition based semi-automatic sleep spindle detection approach is also proposed in this paper. A set of experiments on publicly available database clearly indicate that the proposed approaches are very promising. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most frequent primary ocular tumour among adults. Here, we aimed to establish the immune cell-based signature to predict the overall survival (OS) of UM patients. The mRNA profile and matched clinical records of 80 UM patients were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. CIBERSORT was used to verify the immune cell types of individuals. The univariate analysis found the CD8+ T cell, monocyte, CD4+ memory T cell (resting) and mast cell (resting) were significantly associated with the OS of UM patients. Subsequently, the LASSO Cox regression test was applied to establish the signature, by which the patients were separated into high- and low-risk subgroups. The Kaplan–Meier analyses found for these patients in the high-risk group had a poor survival rate than those in the low-risk group. The predictive value and stability were confirmed by the receiver operative characteristics curves. Pathway analyses found that the differentially expressed genes between the high- and low-risk subgroups were mainly centralised on immune response-related pathways. Further, the comparison of our signature with clinicopathological records confirmed its superiority and independence. In summary, we established an immune cell-based prognosis-predicting signature for UM patients, which will benefit the individual's treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching reflection based on videos is the main method in teacher education and professional development. However, it takes a long time to analyse videos, and teachers are easy to fall into the state of information overload. With the development of "AI + education," automatic recognition of teacher behavior to support teaching reflection has become an important research topic. In this paper, taking online open classroom teaching video as the data source, we collected and constructed a teacher behavior dataset. Using this dataset, we explored the behavior recognition methods based on RGB video and skeleton information, and the information fusion between them is carried out to improve the recognition accuracy. The experimental results show that the fusion of RGB information and skeleton information can improve the recognition accuracy, and the early-fusion effect is better than the late-fusion effect. This study helps to solve the problems of time-consumption and information overload in teaching reflection and then helps teachers to optimize the teaching strategies and improve the teaching efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human activity recognition using depth videos remains a challenging problem while in some applications the available training samples is limited. In this article, we propose a new method for human activity recognition by crafting an integrated descriptor called multi-level fused features for depth sequences and devising a fast broad learning system based on matrix decomposition for classification. First, the surface normals are computed from original depth maps; the histogram of the surface normal orientations is obtained as a low-level feature by accumulating the contributions from normals, then a high-level feature is acquired by sparse coding and pooling on the aggregation of polynormals. After that, the principal component analysis is applied to the conjunction of the two-level features in order to obtain a low-dimensional and discriminative fused feature. At last, fast broad learning system based on matrix decomposition is proposed to accelerate the training process and enhance the classification results. The recognition results on three benchmark data sets show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in term of accuracy, especially when the number of training samples is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a functional data discriminant analysis (FDDA) method for hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. This method analyzes and processes the HSI data from a functional point of view, which is a novel perspective in HSI processing. The classical methods achieve dimensionality reduction by directly eliminating the redundancy of the HSI data. However, the proposed method extracts the functional features by utilizing the redundancy of the HSI data. Functional features can effectively reveal inherent characteristics of the HSI data with the change in the wavelengths. Based on this, a regularized weighted fitting model is first built for converting a spectral vector into a spectral curve. Second, an FDDA method defined in the function field is presented for extracting the functional features of the spectral curves. Finally, a novel spectral–spatial framework is designed for classification tasks of HSI data sets. Experimental results in three commonly used HSI data sets indicate that the proposed method is effective and leads to promising classification results compared with some benchmarking methods. More importantly, the work tries to diversify and develop the existing theory and methods of HSI classification from discrete (vector) data learning methods to continuous (functional) data learning methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glaucoma, a prevalent cause of permanent visual impairment worldwide, is characterized by the progressive degeneration of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). NADPH oxidase (NOX) 1 and NOX4 are pivotal nodes in various retinal diseases. Setanaxib, a potent and highly selective inhibitor of NOX1 and NOX4, can impede the progression of various diseases. This study investigated the efficacy of setanaxib in ameliorating retinal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury and elucidated its underlying mechanisms. The model of retinal I/R induced by acute intraocular hypertension and the oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) model of primary RGCs were established. By suppressing NOX1 and NOX4 expression in RGCs, setanaxib mitigated I/R-induced retinal neuronal loss, structural disruption, and dysfunction. Setanaxib reduced TUNEL-positive cells, upregulated Bcl-2, and inhibited Bax, Bad, and cleaved-caspase-3 overexpression after I/R injury in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, setanaxib also significantly reduced cellular senescence, as demonstrated by downregulating SA-β-gal-positive and p16-INK4a expression. Furthermore, setanaxib significantly suppressed ROS production, Hif-1α and FOXO1 upregulation, and NRF2 downregulation in damaged RGCs. These findings highlight that the setanaxib effectively inhibited NOX1 and NOX4, thereby regulating ROS production and redox signal activation. This inhibition further prevents the activation of apoptosis and senescence related factors in RGCs, ultimately protecting them against retinal I/R injury. Consequently, setanaxib exhibits promising potential as a therapeutic intervention for glaucoma. [Display omitted] • Reversal of retinal ischemia-reperfusion injury by setanaxib, a potent inhibitor targeting NOX1 and NOX4. • Setanaxib mitigates the damage to both retinal structure and function caused by retinal ischemia-reperfusion. • Setanaxib mitigates retinal damage by inhibiting apoptosis, senescence and oxidative stress pathways in retinal ganglion cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-gauge vitrectomy has become popular due to its notable advantages, including less trauma, shortened convalescence and improved manoeuvrability. The aim of the present study was to compare the surgical outcomes of 27-gauge (27-G) vitrectomy with those of 25-gauge (25-G) vitrectomy in the management of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) with preoperative intravitreal injection of conbercept. The data of 48 consecutive patients with PDR (48 eyes) were retrospectively collected. The patients underwent conbercept intravitreal injection and pars plana vitrectomy with a 27-G group (23 eyes) or 25-G group (25 eyes) vitrectomy system. The operating time, suturing rate, endodiathermy rate, postoperative best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), intraocular pressure (IOP) and complications were recorded. The mean postoperative BCVA at final follow-up was significantly improved compared with that at the baseline in both groups (P<0.001 for both). The differences in the mean BCVA changes between the two groups were not significant (P>0.99), and no differences were observed in the final central foveal thickness (P=0.51) between the two groups. The final IOP remained stable compared with that at the baseline in the 27-G group (P=0.36) and the 25-G group (P=0.05). The suturing rate was significantly decreased in the 27-G group compared with the 25-G group (P=0.04). There were no significant differences between the two groups in terms of the operating time (P=0.18), rate of endodiathermy use (P>0.99), iatrogenic retinal breaks (P=0.42) or postoperative recurrent vitreous haemorrhage (P>0.99). In addition, no case of ocular hypotony was observed in either group. In conclusion, 27-G vitrectomy was as efficient and safe as 25-G vitrectomy in the management of PDR in terms of operating time and complications. With reference to the literature, preoperative conbercept injection appears to assist in decreasing the incidence of intraoperative and postoperative complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LINC00511 is an long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) of ncRNAs,This study aimed to investigate whether the lncRNA LINC00511 could encode a small peptide, LINC00511-133aa, and whether this peptide could promote breast cancer cell metastasis and stemness by activating the wnt/β-catenin pathway. The LINC00511-133aa coding sequence vector and control vector were transfected into MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells, with subsequent assessment of peptide expression using PCR, western blotting, and immunofluorescence assays. Cell proliferation, invasion, and apoptosis were evaluated using CCK8, apoptotic, wound healing, and transwell invasion assays, while the characteristic changes of tumor stem cells were detected through sphere-forming assay and western blot analyses of the stemness markers Oct4, Nanog, and SOX2. Results showed that LINC00511-133aa was indeed encoded by LINC00511 and promoted the invasiveness and stemness of breast cancer cells while limiting apoptosis by modulating the expression levels of wnt/β-catenin pathway-related proteins Bax, c-myc, and CyclinD1, as well as facilitating β-catenin protein entry into the nucleus. This study provides evidence for the potential involvement of lncRNA LINC00511 and its peptide product in breast cancer progression via the regulation of the wnt/β-catenin pathway. • Small peptide LINC00511-133aa encoded by lncRNA LINC00511. • LINC00511-133aa regulates breast cancer cell invasion and stemness. • LINC00511-130aa activates the wnt/β-catenin pathway in breast cancer cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrared moving point target detection is a challenging task. In this paper, we define a novel spatial local contrast (SLC) and a novel temporal local contrast (TLC) to enhance the target’s contrast. Based on the defined spatial local contrast and temporal local contrast, we propose a simple but powerful spatial–temporal local contrast filter (STLCF) to detect moving point target from infrared image sequences. In order to verify the performance of spatial–temporal local contrast filter on detecting moving point target, different detection methods are used to detect the target from several infrared image sequences for comparison. The experimental results show that the proposed spatial–temporal local contrast filter has great superiority in moving point target detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]