Search

Aim: To explore the electrophysiological characteristics of the independent muscles in the pelvic floor muscle (PFM) group of postpartum women with diastasis recti abdominis (DRA) and analyze the correlation between the rectus abdominis interval and PFM function. Methods: A total of 133 women who underwent postpartum re‐examination from August 2021 to July 2022 were collected. The participants were divided into DRA and control groups based on the occurrence of DRA on ultrasonography. General data of the participants were collected, and the multisite surface electromyography (sEMG) assessment of the PFMs was performed using a intravaginal novel airbag‐type stretchable electrode array device developed by the team. The sEMG characteristics of the different PFMs in the two groups were compared, and the correlation between the maximum rectus abdominis interval and the sEMG parameters of different PFMs was analyzed. Results: There were no differences in the baseline demographics and incidence of pelvic floor dysfunction between the two groups (p > 0.05). The mean amplitude of vaginal sphincter endurance contraction in the DRA group was significantly lower than that in the control group (28.44 ± 15.59 vs. 22.03 [12.22, 28.00], p < 0.05). Spearman's rank correlation analysis showed a weak negative correlation between the maximum rectus abdominis interval and the endurance contraction mean amplitude of the urethral and external anal sphincters (r = −0.173, −0.217, p < 0.05). Conclusions: Patients with DRA had weakened PFM endurance, and there was a weak negative correlation between the maximum rectus abdominis interval and the endurance contraction mean amplitude of the PFM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Male infertility is an increasingly serious health problem affecting couples of reproductive age. Mutations in axoneme‐associated genes cause male infertility. Dynein arm proteins are essential in sustaining normal axonemes and promote flagellar motility. However, the function of DNAH7 in male fertility in vivo remains unclear. Herein, we showed that DNAH7 disruption in humans results in male infertility, which was characterised by multiple morphological abnormalities of sperm flagella. The axoneme structure of the sperm from a DNAH7‐deficient patient revealed the loss of inner dynein arms. Moreover, the mitochondria of the sperm flagella detached and dispersed outside the axoneme, leading to abnormalities in the mitochondrial sheath in the mid‐piece region. Live birth was achieved via intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Thus, DNAH7 is critical for axoneme and mitochondrial development in human sperm. These findings further clarify the spectrum of DNAH7 biology and provide new insights for diagnosing infertility and treating patients harbouring DNAH7 mutations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy is an emerging technology that provides high chemical specificity for endogenous biomolecules and can circumvent common constraints of fluorescence microscopy including limited capabilities to probe small biomolecules and difficulty resolving many colors simultaneously. However, the resolution of SRS microscopy remains governed by the diffraction limit. To overcome this, a new technique called molecule anchorable gel‐enabled nanoscale Imaging of Fluorescence and stimulated Raman scattering microscopy (MAGNIFIERS) that integrates SRS microscopy with expansion microscopy (ExM) is described. MAGNIFIERS offers chemical‐specific nanoscale imaging with sub‐50 nm resolution and has scalable multiplexity when combined with multiplex Raman probes and fluorescent labels. MAGNIFIERS is used to visualize nanoscale features in a label‐free manner with CH vibration of proteins, lipids, and DNA in a broad range of biological specimens, from mouse brain, liver, and kidney to human lung organoid. In addition, MAGNIFIERS is applied to track nanoscale features of protein synthesis in protein aggregates using metabolic labeling of small metabolites. Finally, MAGNIFIERS is used to demonstrate 8‐color nanoscale imaging in an expanded mouse brain section. Overall, MAGNIFIERS is a valuable platform for super‐resolution label‐free chemical imaging, high‐resolution metabolic imaging, and highly multiplexed nanoscale imaging, thus bringing SRS to nanoscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the proposal and development of Generative Adversarial Networks, the great achievements in the field of image generation are made. Meanwhile, many works related to the generation of painting art have also been derived. However, due to the difficulty of data collection and the fundamental challenge from freehand expressions, the generation of traditional Chinese painting is still far from being perfect. This paper specialises in Chinese art painting generation of flowers, which is important and classic, by deep learning method. First, an unpaired flowers paintings data set containing three classic Chinese painting style: line drawing, meticulous, and ink is constructed. Then, based on the collected dataset, a Flower‐Generative Adversarial Network framework to generate multi‐style Chinese art painting of flowers is proposed. The Flower‐Generative Adversarial Network, consisting of attention‐guided generators and discriminators, transfers the style among line drawing, meticulous, and ink by an adversarial training way. Moreover, in order to solve the problem of artefact and blur in image generation by existing methods, a new loss function called Multi‐Scale Structural Similarity to force the structure preservation is introduced. Extensive experiments show that the proposed Flower‐Generative Adversarial Network framework can produce better and multi‐style Chinese art painting of flowers than existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]