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BackgroundThe severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic calls for expanded opportunities for testing, including novel testing strategies such as home-collected specimens. ObjectiveWe aimed to understand whether oropharyngeal swab (OPS), saliva, and dried blood spot (DBS) specimens collected by participants at home and mailed to a laboratory were sufficient for use in diagnostic and serology tests of SARS-CoV-2. MethodsEligible participants consented online and were mailed a participant-collection kit to support collection of three specimens for SARS-CoV-2 testing: saliva, OPS, and DBS. Participants performed the specimen collection procedures during a telehealth video appointment while clinical observers watched and documented the suitability of the collection. The biological sufficiency of the specimens for detection of SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction and serology testing was assessed by laboratorians using visual inspection and quantification of the nucleic acid contents of the samples by ribonuclease P (RNase P) measurements. ResultsOf the enrolled participants,153/159 (96.2%) returned their kits, which were included in this analysis. All these participants attended their video appointments. Clinical observers assessed that of the samples collected, 147/153 (96.1%) of the saliva samples, 146/151 (96.7%) of the oropharyngeal samples, and 135/145 (93.1%) of the DBS samples were of sufficient quality for submission for laboratory testing; 100% of the OPS samples and 98% of the saliva samples had cycle threshold values for RNase P

Diabetic macular edema (DME) is a leading cause of vision impairment in diabetic patients, necessitating a timely and accurate diagnosis. This paper proposes a comprehensive system for DME grading using retinal fundus images. Our approach integrates multiple deep learning modules, each designed to address key aspects of the diagnostic process. The first module employs the ConvUNeXt model for segmenting hard exudates (HaEx), crucial indicators of DME. The second module uses RetinaNet for precise optic disc (OD) localization, which is essential for subsequent macula localization. The third module refines macula localization, leveraging preprocessing techniques to enhance image clarity. Finally, our system consolidates these results to provide interpretable DME grading. Experimental evaluations were conducted on the Messidor dataset, demonstrating the system's robust performance. The HaEx segmentation module achieved a mean IoU of 70.5% and a Dice coefficient of 0.64. The OD localization module showed perfect accuracy, recall, and precision at 1.0. For macula localization, our method satisfied the 1R criterion with 99.38% accuracy. The DME grading module achieved an overall accuracy of 91.12%, with an AUC of 0.9334. Our method offers a balanced performance across accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity compared to other non-interpretable and partially interpretable methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiment is conducted to establish the structure of the major heme species released from CYP4B1 upon base treatment in 5-hydroxymethylheme of chromatography and 2D NMR. The conclusion derived from the experiment is covalent heme binding to P450 that provides a novel method for assessing microheterogeneity in heme orientation and questions about the fidelity of heme incorporation in recombinant systems.

Uterine artery embolization (UAE) is a type of noninvasive treatment for symptomatic uterine fibroids. One of the complications of UAE is fibroid expulsion. Here, we report a case of a 45-year-old woman who underwent UAE for an intramural fibroid, which resulted in fibroid expulsion. To the best of our knowledge, there are only few reports of expulsion of intramural fibroids. The process of fibroid protrusion from the myometrium into the uterine cavity was depicted on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in this case. We discuss the risk factors and mechanisms of fibroid expulsion after UAE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbial production of mevalonate from renewable feedstock is a promising and sustainable approach for the production of value‐added chemicals. We describe the metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli to enhance mevalonate production from glucose and cellobiose. First, the mevalonate‐producing pathway was introduced into E. coli and the expression of the gene atoB, which encodes the gene for acetoacetyl‐CoA synthetase, was increased. Then, the deletion of the pgi gene, which encodes phosphoglucose isomerase, increased the NADPH/NADP+ ratio in the cells but did not improve mevalonate production. Alternatively, to reduce flux toward the tricarboxylic acid cycle, gltA, which encodes citrate synthetase, was disrupted. The resultant strain, MGΔgltA‐MV, increased levels of intracellular acetyl‐CoA up to sevenfold higher than the wild‐type strain. This strain produced 8.0 g/L of mevalonate from 20 g/L of glucose. We also engineered the sugar supply by displaying β‐glucosidase (BGL) on the cell surface. When cellobiose was used as carbon source, the strain lacking gnd displaying BGL efficiently consumed cellobiose and produced mevalonate at 5.7 g/L. The yield of mevalonate was 0.25 g/g glucose (1 g of cellobiose corresponds to 1.1 g of glucose). These results demonstrate the feasibility of producing mevalonate from cellobiose or cellooligosaccharides using an engineered E. coli strain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

View large Download slide View large Download slide OBJECTIVES The through-and-through guidewire technique has been utilized for safe advancement of a high-profile stent graft delivery system through the tortuous aorta. A brachial-to-femoral configuration is most commonly established, but a few alternatives have been described. This study aimed to report our experience with the externalized transapical guidewire (ETAG) technique in patients who underwent thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) and to explore its utility, feasibility and safety. METHODS Patients who underwent TEVAR between April 2015 and March 2017 were retrospectively reviewed, and 5 patients who underwent the procedure with the ETAG technique were found eligible for the study. Indications for the ETAG technique were the following challenging aortic anatomical configurations: (i) severely angulated aorta in 3; (ii) proximity of the proximal landing zone to the aortic valve in 2; (iii) a limited proximal landing zone in 1; and (iv) complex atheroma predominantly on the greater curvature of the aorta in 3 patients. RESULTS TEVAR was completed in all cases. The ETAG technique was utilized in all patients. The delivery system tip was navigated along the lesser curvature of the aortic arch as it was advanced. During deployment, conformability was increased by pushing both ends of the wire. Tip retrieval was also enhanced in 3 patients. Patients with complex aortic atheroma had no embolic complications. All patients survived TEVAR, but 1 patient with an aorto-oesophageal fistula did not survive the second-stage oesophagectomy. Postoperative complications included delayed cardiac tamponade requiring drainage in 2 patients. CONCLUSIONS The ETAG technique was useful in overcoming several anatomical challenges encountered during TEVAR. Contact of the delivery system with the greater curvature of the aortic arch could be avoided with this technique, potentially reducing embolization risk related to the complex aortic arch atheroma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An imperceptible visible watermarking (IVW) algorithm is proposed to deliver auxiliary information about the visual contents, including ownership information. The proposed algorithm overcomes several inconveniences presented in previously reported IVW algorithms using the just noticeable difference (JND) criterion, invisible watermarking and binarisation function. The proposed algorithm consists of the visible watermark embedding and the exhibition stages. The JND criterion is used to embed visible watermark pattern in an imperceptible manner by the human visual system, while invisible watermarking based on the discrete cosine transform is used to share crucial parameters between both stages, which makes possible the watermark visualisation without any side information. In the watermark exhibition stage, the imperceptibly embedded visible watermark pattern is exhibited by the binarisation function. The proposed algorithm can be applied to any class of images with different characteristics and several visible watermark patterns can be embedded into an input image. Evaluation results show that performance of the proposed algorithm is better compared with previously reported algorithms from several practical points of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a scheme for improving the image quality produced by most super-resolution (SR) algorithms. In the proposed scheme the quality of a given image whose size has been increased by a SR system, is improved by using an iterative back projection and sharpening process. The improvement of the image quality obtained by using the proposed method used together with several previously proposed image interpolation algorithms is compared with those obtained by using classic interpolation methods and some other state-of-the-art algorithms. In all cases, the image is evaluated using several Image quality assessment models such as: Visual Information Fidelity (VIF), Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM), and Spatial‑Spectral Entropy-based Quality index (SSEQ), as well as subjective way. Evaluation results show the desirable features of the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mammalian CYP4B1 enzymes are cytochrome P450 mono-oxygenases that are responsible for the bioactivation of several exogenous pro-toxins including 4-ipomeanol (4-IPO). In contrast with the orthologous rabbit enzyme, we show here that native human CYP4B1 with a serine residue at position 427 is unable to bioactivate 4-IPO and does not cause cytotoxicity in HepG2 cells and primary human T-cells that overexpress these enzymes. We also demonstrate that a proline residue in the meander region at position 427 in human CYP4B1 and 422 in rabbit CYP4B1 is important for protein stability and rescues the 4-IPO bioactivation of the human enzyme, but is not essential for the catalytic activity of the rabbit CYP4B1 protein. Systematic substitution of native and p.S427P human CYP4B1 with peptide regions from the highly active rabbit enzyme reveals that 18 amino acids in the wild-type rabbit CYP4B1 protein are key for conferring high 4-IPO metabolizing activity. Introduction of 12 of the 18 amino acids that are also present at corresponding positions in other human CYP4 family members into the p.S427P human CYP4B1 protein results in a mutant human enzyme (P+12) that is as stable and as active as the rabbit wild-type CYP4B1 protein. These 12 mutations cluster in the predicted B-C loop through F-helix regions and reveal new amino acid regions important to P450 enzyme stability. Finally, by minimally re-engineering the human CYP4B1 enzyme for efficient activation of 4-IPO, we have developed a novel human suicide gene system that is a candidate for adoptive cellular therapies in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug metabolism and transport processes in the liver, intestine and kidney that affect the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of therapeutic agents have been studied extensively. In contrast, comparatively little research has been conducted on these topics as they pertain to the eye. Recently, however, catalytic functions of ocular cytochrome P450 enzymes have gained increasing attention, in large part due to the roles of CYP1B1 and CYP4V2 variants in primary congenital glaucoma and Bietti's corneoretinal crystalline dystrophy, respectively. In this review, we discuss challenges to ophthalmic drug delivery, including Phase I drug metabolism and transport in the eye, and the role of three specific P450s, CYP4B1, CYP1B1 and CYP4V2 in ocular inflammation and genetically determined ocular disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we demonstrate the one-step production of cadaverine (1,5-diaminopentane) from cellobiose using an Escherichia coli strain displaying β-glucosidase (BGL) on its cell surface. L-lysine decarboxylase (CadA) derived from E. coli and BGL from Thermobifida fusca YX (Tfu0937) fused to the anchor protein Blc from E. coli were co-expressed using E. coli as a host. The expression of CadA was confirmed by Western blotting and BGL activity on the cell surface was evaluated using pNPG as a substrate. Growth on cellobiose as the sole carbon source was also achieved. The OD600 value of the BGL and CadA co-expressing strain was 8.0 after 48 h cultivation, which is higher than that obtained by growth on glucose (5.4 after 48 h cultivation). The engineered strain produced cadaverine from cellobiose more effectively than from glucose: 6.1 mM after 48 h from 28 g/L of consumed cellobiose, vs. 3.3 mM from 20 g/L of consumed glucose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of smoke is the first symptom of fire; therefore to achieve early fire detection, accurate and quick estimation of the presence of smoke is very important. In this paper we propose an algorithm to detect the presence of smoke using video sequences captured by Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, in which important features of smoke, such as color, motion and growth properties are employed. For an efficient smoke detection in the IP camera platform, a detection algorithm must operate directly in the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) domain to reduce computational cost, avoiding a complete decoding process required for algorithms that operate in spatial domain. In the proposed algorithm the DCT Inter-transformation technique is used to increase the detection accuracy without inverse DCT operation. In the proposed scheme, firstly the candidate smoke regions are estimated using motion and color smoke properties; next using morphological operations the noise is reduced. Finally the growth properties of the candidate smoke regions are furthermore analyzed through time using the connected component labeling technique. Evaluation results show that a feasible smoke detection method with false negative and false positive error rates approximately equal to 4% and 2%, respectively, is obtained [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A novel telomerase-associated protein was isolated from porcine testis. The 115-kDa protein, purified with telomerase activity, was molecular cloned using human cDNA library, and identified as MOV10. The expression levels of both MOV10 mRNA and MOV10 protein in cancer cells were 2–3 times higher than that of the normal cells, and MOV10 mRNA was highly expressed in human testis and ovary. The anti-MOV10 antibody precipitated the telomerase activity from cancer cell extracts, and inhibited the telomerase activity in vitro. Sf9-expressed MOV10 protein bound to G-rich strand of both single- and double-stranded telomere-sequenced DNA, but not to single C-rich strand. ChIP assay showed the binding of MOV10 to telomere region in vivo. These data suggest that MOV10 is involved in the progression of telomerase-catalyzing reaction via the interaction of telomerase protein and telomere DNA. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We compared the life history traits of an amphidiploid species,Drosera tokaiensis(Komiya&C. Shibata) T. Nakamura&Ueda, with those of the parental species, a diploidDrosera rotundifoliaL and a tetraploidDrosera spatulataLabill. to characterize them and clarify the conditions for coexistence. The ranges of the parental species are quite different, but overlap in Japan. The amphidiploid and the parents grow together in some natural habitats. Observations and experiments on reproductive properties were carried out in a glasshouse and a laboratory. Seeds ofD. rotundifoliawere dormant, whereas those ofD. spatulatawere not. InD. tokaiensis, the dormant/non-dormant seed ratio varied from site to site.Drosera rotundifoliahas such life history traits as concentrated flowering and seed dormancy, which are relevant to habitats with short growing seasons and a severe winter.Drosera spatulatahas such traits as a prolonged duration of flowering and non-dormancy, relevant to habitats with long growing seasons and a mild winter.Drosera tokaiensispossesses life history traits of the parental species to various degrees, but exhibits no extreme traits. It is suggested that separation of flowering time and autogamy allow the amphidiploid to coexist with the parental species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces the application of temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TGGE)-selections to DNA secondary structure motifs. Design and optimization of the DNA tetraloop library; Selection of stable DNA tetraloops; Identification of stable DNA hairpins; Thermodynamic characterization of minihairpins; Circular dichroism spectroscopic characterization of the minihairpins.

Among many cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia, attention impairments dominate the clinical description of the illness. Attention plays a critical role in daily and psychosocial functioning. For instance, attention is required to converse with others or to perform vocational activities successfully. This paper attempts to describe computerassisted and behavior therapy-based interventions, discuss assumptions underlying both approaches, synthesize findings on efficacy of these treatments, and compare interventions in terms of generalization and effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Measures the thermodynamics of RNA/DNA duplexes containing single mismatches. Enhancement of the stability of mismatches; Order for the mismatch stabilities; Hydrogen ion concentration dependence stability and structural changes in rA.dG mismatches.

This paper proposes a teleophthalmology support system in which we use algorithms of object detection and semantic segmentation, such as faster region-based CNN (FR-CNN) and SegNet, based on several CNN architectures such as: Vgg16, MobileNet, AlexNet, etc. These are used to segment and analyze the principal anatomical elements, such as optic disc (OD), region of interest (ROI) composed by the macular region, real retinal region, and vessels. Unlike the conventional retinal image quality assessment system, the proposed system provides some possible reasons about the low-quality image to support the operator of an ophthalmoscope and patient to acquire and transmit a better-quality image to central eye hospital for its diagnosis. The proposed system consists of four steps: OD detection, OD quality analysis, obstruction detection of the region of interest (ROI), and vessel segmentation. For the OD detection, artefacts and vessel segmentation, the FR-CNN and SegNet are used, while for the OD quality analysis, we use transfer learning. The proposed system provides accuracies of 0.93 for the OD detection, 0.86 for OD image quality, 1.0 for artefact detection, and 0.98 for vessel segmentation. As the global performance metric, the kappa-based agreement score between ophthalmologist and the proposed system is calculated, which is higher than the score between ophthalmologist and general practitioner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of coding schemes with the capacity to simultaneously encrypt and compress audio signals is a subject of active research because of the increasing necessity for transmitting sensitive audio information over insecure communication channels. Thus, several schemes have been developed; firstly, some of them compress the digital information and subsequently encrypt the resulting information. These schemas efficiently compress and encrypt the information. However, they may compromise the information as it can be accessed before encryption. To overcome this problem, a compressing sensing-based system to simultaneously compress and encrypt audio signals is proposed in which the audio signal is segmented in frames of 1024 samples and transformed into a sparse frame using the discrete cosine transform (DCT). Each frame is then multiplied by a different sensing matrix generated using the chaotic mixing scheme. This fact allows that the proposed scheme satisfies the extended Wyner secrecy (EWS) criterion. The evaluation results obtained using several genres of audio signals show that the proposed system allows to simultaneously compress and encrypt audio signals, satisfying the EWS criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine the utility of low-dose gelatin sponge particles and 5% ethanolamine oleate iopamidol (EOI) mixture in retrograde transvenous obliteration (GERTO) for gastric varices (GV). 57 consecutive patients who underwent balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (B-RTO) for GV were divided into three groups with Hirota's grade by balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous venography. Hirota's Grade 1 patients were assigned to G1 group and underwent treatment with 5% EOI. Grade ≥ 2 patients prior to August 2015 were G ≥ 2 group treated with 5% EOI, and those treated thereafter were GERTO group. The amount of EOI used per unit GV volume (EOI/GV ratio), the times to embolization and recurrence rate of GV were evaluated. The EOI/GV ratio was 0.66 ± 0.19 in G1, 1.5 ± 0.8 in G ≥ 2, and 0.58 ± 0.23 in GERTO (G ≥ 2 vs GERTO, p < 0.0001). The times to embolization were 26.5 ± 10.5 min for G1, 39.2 ± 26.8 for G ≥ 2, and 21.4 ± 9.4 for GERTO (G ≥ 2 vs GERTO, p = 0.005). The recurrence rate was not significantly different in any of the groups. GERTO was performed in lower amount of sclerosants and in less time compared to conventional B-RTO in Hirota's grade ≥2. Feasibility of low-dose gelatin sponge particles and 5% EOI mixture as sclerosants for GV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika viruses cause dangerous infections in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world. The World Health Organization estimates that one out of every three persons in the entire human population is in danger of contracting one of these diseases from a single mosquito bite. Currently, these viral infections are not preventable by vaccines and there is not a direct treatment that can effectively diminish the viral infection, which causes a wide range of pathologies, including severe joint pain, internal blood loss, permanent neurological damage in unborn children and even death. Due to this grim scenario, the best and maybe the only line of defense against these diseases is the effective surveillance, control and suppression of the mosquitoes that transmit these viruses: Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. In this paper, we present a complete solution that is capable of identifying the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquito in the larval stage, which is easily disposable, restricted to water bodies, and incapable of transmitting diseases according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Our proposal is based on deep neural networks (DNN) that effectively recognize larval samples with an accuracy of 94.19%, which is better than other state-of-the-art automatic methods. Additionally, the capabilities of our proposed DNN allow us to automatically crop the region of interest (ROI) with an accuracy of 92.85% and then automatically classify the region as Aedes positive or Aedes negative, without further human intervention and in less than a second, accelerating the response time for biological control from days to seconds. Our proposal includes hardware designs that allow inexpensive implementation, making it suitable for isolated communities, underdeveloped countries, and rural or urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a novel unary spiking circuit for a serial multiplier with variable dendritic delays. Serial multipliers commonly use the soma model for the arithmetic operation. The structure of the serial multiplier and the efficient implementation of the dendritic delays on customized neuromorphic hardware are the major contributions of this work. The design of the multiplier was inspired by the biological processes of dendrites, which use feedback connections and dendritic growth to synchronize the neural processing performed by the soma. The multiplier eliminates complex rules by adopting the soma model with dendritic connectivity configurations, increasing the processing speed compared with previously reported solutions based on Spiking Neural Networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]