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The utilization of (cationic) reversible addition‐fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization in photoinduced three‐dimensional (3D) printing has emerged as a robust technique for fabricating a variety of stimuli‐responsive materials. However, methods for precisely adjusting the mechanical properties of these materials remain limited, thereby constraining their broader applicability. In this study, a facile way is introduced to modulate the mechanical properties of 3D printed objects by mixing two chain transfer agents (CTAs) within a radical‐promoted cationic RAFT (RPC‐RAFT) polymerization‐based 3D printing process. Through systematic investigations employing tensile testing and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), the influence of CTA concentration and molar ratio between two CTAs on the mechanical behavior of the printed objects are explored. These findings demonstrate that higher concentrations of CTAs or a greater molar ratio of the more active CTA within the mixed CTAs result in decreased Young's modulus and glass transition temperatures of the printed objects. Moreover, the tensile failure strain increased with the increasing CTA content, i.e., the samples became more ductile. This methodology broadens the toolbox available for tailoring the mechanical properties of 3D printed materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To analyze the influence of RV dysfunction evaluated by Free‐angle M‐mode (FAM) TAPSE Z‐score on retrograde ductus arteriosus flow (RDAF) in fetuses with Ebstein anomaly (EA). Methods: A retrospective cohort study of 30 EA and 60 normal fetuses were enrolled. The EA group was divided into two groups: with RDAF (EA‐RDAF group) and without RDAF (EA‐NRDAF group). FAM was used to measure TAPSE of EA and normal fetuses, and Z‐scores were calculated. The differences of FAM‐TAPSE Z‐score, gestational week (GW), maternal age (MA), and mitral valve‐tricuspid valve distance (MTD) between three groups were compared. The correlation and binary logistic regression between FAM‐TAPSE Z‐score, GW, MA, MTD, and RDAF were analyzed. Results: FAM‐TAPSE Z‐score was significantly lower in EA‐RDAF group compared to other groups (p < 0.05). FAM‐TAPSE Z‐score, GW, and MA were negatively correlated with RDAF (p < 0.05), but no correlation was found between TR, MDT, and RDAF (p > 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression showed that FAM‐TAPSE Z‐score was an independent influencing factor for RDAF (OR = 0.102, p < 0.05). Conclusion: RV dysfunction is an independent factor leading to RDAF in EA fetus, which provides a feasible theoretical basis for further study on improvement of RV function through intrauterine treatment to delay and prevent the RDAF, to avoid death cycle and improve live‐birth rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on three large ensemble (LE) historical simulations, this study explored the contribution of low‐frequency internal variability (IV) modes to global mean sea surface temperature anomaly (GmSST) during 1920–2010. The dominant contributions of low‐frequency IV modes to GmSST in the three large ensembles are quite different. The low‐frequency IV modes in the Indo‐Pacific Ocean (i.e., IPO and IOBW) dominate the low‐frequency GmSST signal for the CESM2 and MPI LEs (the ensemble median contribution value reaches 70%–80%), while the low‐frequency IV modes in the North Atlantic dominate for the FGOALS‐g3 LE (contribute more than 50%). CESM2 LE and MPI LE can reasonably reproduce the impact of low‐frequency modes in the Indo‐Pacific ocean as observed, but FGOALS‐g3 LE underestimates this impact and overestimates the extratropical impact (on GmSST) of the North Atlantic. After removing the external forcing, it still retains the excessive signs in low‐frequency IV modes in FGOALS‐g3 LE over the North Atlantic. Furthermore, we used a pattern adjustment approach to revise the surplus effect in the North Atlantic. After revision, the contribution of decadal IVs in the North Atlantic to GmSST is reduced by 30%. Meanwhile, the tropical contribution in the Indo‐Pacific Ocean is increased and that is closer to the observed one. This approach can be employed to revise the weak or strong IV signals in other regions or LEs, which is meaningful for reducing the uncertainty of IV signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was designed to investigate the application value of the atrial septum excursion index (ASEI) in fetuses with isolated restrictive foramen ovale (RFO) or redundant foramen ovale flap (RFOF) and the outcomes of these fetuses. Methods: This was a retrospective study. Healthy pregnant women who were examined by antenatal fetal echocardiography from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2021, at Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital were enrolled. One hundred seventy‐seven (177) fetuses were categorized into three groups by diagnosis: (1) RFOF (n = 33), (2) RFO (n = 21), and (3) normal (n = 123). Fetal echocardiographic features and postnatal outcomes were collected. Results: The median ASEIs were 0.50 (range, 0.41–0.65) in the control group, 0.76 (range, 0.67–0.88) in the RFOF group and 0.31 (range, 0.14–0.35) in the RFO group, and the differences were significant (p < 0.001). The ratios of right atrium/left atrium, right ventricle/left ventricle, and pulmonary artery diameter to aorta diameter (PA/AO) and the pulmonary annulus Z‐scores were greater in fetuses with RFOF and RFO than in the controls (p < 0.05). Twenty‐seven of 33 fetuses (87.9%) with RFOF and 19 of 21 fetuses (90.5%) with RFO had good outcomes after birth. Conclusion: The ASEI may be a new tool for quantitatively assessing the mobility of foramen ovale flaps in fetuses with isolated RFOF or RFO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Type III redundancy of the foramen ovale flap (RFOF) mimics hemodynamic changes of mitral stenosis(MS), which has not been particularly highlighted in previous literature but carries a favorable prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Congenital ventricular outpouching (CVO) is a rare cardiac malformation that can manifest as congenital ventricular aneurysm (CVA) and/or congenital ventricular diverticula (CVD). In this study, we describe the prenatal features and postnatal follow‐up of 27 cases of CVO. Methods: The clinical data of 27 patients with CVO who attended Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital Affiliated to the Medical College of Zhejiang University (Zhejiang Province, China) and Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province Affiliated to Wenzhou Medical University (Zhejiang Province, China) from April 2013 to October 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were also followed up by telephone. The prenatal characteristics and postnatal outcomes of the patients with CVO were evaluated. Results: CVO was detected in 26 cases prenatally, 14 (51.85%) were diagnosed with CVA, nine (33.33%) were diagnosed with CVD, three (11.11%) were equivocal for CVA/CVD, and one (3.70%) was detected with CVA postnatally. Six patients underwent follow‐up fetal echocardiography approximately 4 weeks after the initial echocardiography examination, and a significant difference in CVO size was observed between the two examinations (P =.02). Eight patients (29.63%) demonstrated cardiovascular dysfunction, and the median CVO size in fetuses with and without cardiovascular dysfunction was 205 (range: 169–396) mm2 and 124 (range: 92–154.5) mm2, respectively (P =.01). Correlation was found between CVO size and fetal cardiac dysfunction (p =.000, r =.778). Eight patients (29.63%) had cardiac/extracardiac defects. Thirteen patients were live born, 12 were terminated pregnancies, and two were lost to follow‐up. The postpartum size of the CVOs remained stable in six patients, decreased in two patients, dissolved in three patients, and were surgically removed in two patients. With the exception of one patient with CVA complicated with complex congenital cardiac malformation who underwent surgical treatment after birth and who had postoperative left ventricular dysfunction (Case 1), the prognosis of all of the patients was good. Conclusion: CVO is often associated with cardiac malformations. The size of prenatal CVOs can increase with gestational development, and cardiovascular dysfunction is significantly related to CVO size. The postpartum prognosis of patients with CVO is good. Echocardiography plays a key role in the diagnosis of congenital ventricular outpouching. Prenatal counseling should be cautious regarding the diagnosis and the prognosis although our cases had a favorable prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recognition of T‐cell receptor (TCR) on the surface of T cell to specific epitope presented by the major histocompatibility complex is the key to trigger the immune response. Identifying the binding rules of TCR–epitope pair is crucial for developing immunotherapies, including neoantigen vaccine and drugs. Accurate prediction of TCR–epitope binding specificity via deep learning remains challenging, especially in test cases which are unseen in the training set. Here, we propose TEPCAM (TCR–EPitope identification based on Cross‐Attention and Multi‐channel convolution), a deep learning model that incorporates self‐attention, cross‐attention mechanism, and multi‐channel convolution to improve the generalizability and enhance the model interpretability. Experimental results demonstrate that our model outperformed several state‐of‐the‐art models on two challenging tasks including a strictly split dataset and an external dataset. Furthermore, the model can learn some interaction patterns between TCR and epitope by extracting the interpretable matrix from cross‐attention layer and mapping them to the three‐dimensional structures. The source code and data are freely available at https://github.com/Chenjw99/TEPCAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize (Zea mays) requires substantial amounts of nitrogen, posing a challenge for its cultivation. Recent work discovered that some ancient Mexican maize landraces harbored diazotrophic bacteria in mucilage secreted by their aerial roots. To see if this trait is retained in modern maize, we conducted a field study of aerial root mucilage (ARM) in 258 inbred lines. We observed that ARM secretion is common in modern maize, but the amount significantly varies, and only a few lines have retained the nitrogen‐fixing traits found in ancient landraces. The mucilage of the high‐ARM inbred line HN5‐724 had high nitrogen‐fixing enzyme activity and abundant diazotrophic bacteria. Our genome‐wide association study identified 17 candidate genes associated with ARM across three environments. Knockouts of one candidate gene, the subtilase family gene ZmSBT3, confirmed that it negatively regulates ARM secretion. Notably, the ZmSBT3 knockout lines had increased biomass and total nitrogen accumulation under nitrogen‐free culture conditions. High ARM was associated with three ZmSBT3 haplotypes that were gradually lost during maize domestication, being retained in only a few modern inbred lines such as HN5‐724. In summary, our results identify ZmSBT3 as a potential tool for enhancing ARM, and thus nitrogen fixation, in maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much progress has been made in understanding how anthropogenic forcing influences the climate mean state, less attention has been paid to how it may modulate the internal variability of air–sea coupled mode. This study investigates forced changes of the leading internal mode of the summertime Northwest Pacific subtropical anticyclone (NWPSA) and the related sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies based on the 110‐member FGOALS‐g3 super‐large ensemble for the period of 1850–2099. The leading internal mode of the NWPSA variability is obtained by applying snapshot‐empirical orthogonal function analyses across the ensemble dimension each year. It is shown that the connection between the NWPSA and the preceding El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) strengthens in response to anthropogenic forcing, and the precipitation along the northwestern flank of the NWPSA increases correspondingly due to stronger water vapour transport. The SST anomalies corresponding to the change invoke a rapid transition from El Niño to La Niña in a warming world, which induces a zonal SST contrast between the Indian Ocean warming and the equatorial Pacific cooling, favouring a strengthening of the NWPSA. The stronger influence of ENSO on the NWPSA in the ensuing summer under greenhouse warming may result from the pronounced increase in the internal variability of the central deep‐equatorial Pacific SST and precipitation over the western‐central equatorial Pacific in winter. The stronger influence indicates that ENSO may serve as a stronger predictor of the summertime NWPSA in a warming climate, and may improve the skills of the seasonal forecast of the climate over East and South Asia in summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) have significantly advanced the generation of highly realistic and expressive 3D scenes. However, the task of editing NeRF, particularly in terms of geometry modification, poses a significant challenge. This issue has obstructed NeRF's wider adoption across various applications. To tackle the problem of efficiently editing neural implicit fields, we introduce Neural Impostor, a hybrid representation incorporating an explicit tetrahedral mesh alongside a multigrid implicit field designated for each tetrahedron within the explicit mesh. Our framework bridges the explicit shape manipulation and the geometric editing of implicit fields by utilizing multigrid barycentric coordinate encoding, thus offering a pragmatic solution to deform, composite, and generate neural implicit fields while maintaining a complex volumetric appearance. Furthermore, we propose a comprehensive pipeline for editing neural implicit fields based on a set of explicit geometric editing operations. We show the robustness and adaptability of our system through diverse examples and experiments, including the editing of both synthetic objects and real captured data. Finally, we demonstrate the authoring process of a hybrid synthetic‐captured object utilizing a variety of editing operations, underlining the transformative potential of Neural Impostor in the field of 3D content creation and manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: With the popularity of mobile Internet networks and mobile terminal equipment, mobile crowdsensing (MCS) has become a popular and economical way of data collection, sharing, and query services. However, the existing privacy‐preserving query schemes MCS‐based less consider the sensing user's privacy leakage at data aggregation phase and querier's privacy leakage at query service phase simultaneously. In this article, we propose a novel privacy‐preserving aggregation and query scheme applied in metro passenger flow via MCS, which achieves the metro passenger flow acquisition and query service and protects the sensing user's identity and location privacy as well as the querier's query privacy. We exploit Paillier cryptosystem and pseudonym mechanism to prevent the privacy leakage, and utilize secure kNN algorithm to protect the query privacy. Meanwhile, we achieve the sensing user accountability based on digital signature algorithm and credible management. The privacy analysis demonstrates that our scheme satisfies the privacy‐preserving and security requirements. The performance evaluation and experimental result show the efficiency of our scheme in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: The application of reversible degenerative radical polymerization (RDRP) in the construction of polymer networks (PNs) provides a facile and convenient way to fabricate 3D objects with the ability to be posttransformed. However, the polymerization mechanism mainly relies on chain‐growth polymerization, which limits its wide application for various polymeric materials with different functionalities. Here, we present a method toward PNs by utilizing a photoinduced RAFT step‐growth polymerization, which is based on a RAFT single unit monomer insertion (SUMI) reaction between a xanthate and an alkyl vinyl group. Benefiting from this reaction, a pendant RAFT agent can be generated in each repeat unit of the backbone during the polymerization. These reactivatable dormant species can be further used for the postfunctionalization of PNs prepared by step‐growth polymerization of multifunctional monomers. Moreover, the prepared PNs are degradable owing to the introduction of ester groups, providing an avenue toward degradable and stimuli‐responsive materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blood–retinal barrier (BRB) breakdown is responsible for multiple ocular diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy, age‐related macular degeneration, and retinal vascular occlusive diseases. Increased vascular permeability contributes to vasogenic edema and tissue damage, with consequent adverse effects on vision. Herein, we found that endothelial CYP2J2 overexpression maintained BRB integrity after ischemia–reperfusion injury and consequently protected against retinal ganglion cell loss. Oxidative stress repressed endothelial ANXA1 expression in vivo and in vitro. CYP2J2 upregulated methyltransferase‐like 3 (METTL3) expression and hence promoted ANXA1 translation via ANXA1 m6A modification in endothelium under oxidative stress. CYP2J2 maintained the distribution of endothelial tight junctions and adherens junctions in an ANXA1‐dependent manner. Endothelial ANXA1 plays an indispensable role in vascular homeostasis and stabilization during development. Endothelial ANXA1 deletion disrupted retinal vascular perfusion as well as BRB integrity. CYP2J2 metabolites restored BRB integrity in the presence of ANXA1. Our findings identified the CYP2J2–METTL3–ANXA1 pathway as a potential therapeutic target for relieving BRB impairments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By means of a new multilayer pseudo‐spectral moist‐convective thermal rotating shallow‐water (mcTRSW) model in a full sphere, we present a possible equatorial adjustment beyond Gill's mechanism for the genesis and dynamics of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). According to this theory, an eastward‐propagating MJO‐like structure can be generated in a self‐sustained and self‐propelled manner due to nonlinear relaxation (adjustment) of a large‐scale positive buoyancy anomaly, depressed anomaly, or a combination of these, as soon as this anomaly reaches a critical threshold in the presence of moist convection at the Equator. This MJO‐like episode possesses a convectively coupled "hybrid structure" that consists of a "quasi‐equatorial modon" with an enhanced vortex pair and a convectively coupled baroclinic Kelvin wave (BKW), with greater phase speed than that of dipolar structure on an intraseasonal time‐scale. Interaction of the BKW, after circumnavigating the entire Equator, with a new large‐scale buoyancy anomaly may contribute to excitation of a recurrent generation of the next cycle of MJO‐like structure. Overall, the generated "hybrid structure" captures a few of the crudest features of the MJO, including its quadrupolar structure, convective activity, condensation patterns, vorticity field, phase speed, and westerly and easterly inflows in the lower and upper troposphere. Although moisture‐fed convection is a necessary condition for the "hybrid structure" to be excited and maintained in the proposed theory in this study, it is fundamentally different from moisture‐mode theories, because the barotropic equatorial modon and BKW also exist in "dry" environments, while there are no similar "dry" dynamical basic structures in moisture‐mode theories. The proposed theory can therefore be a possible mechanism to explain the genesis and backbone structure of the MJO and to converge some theories that previously seemed divergent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microstructures and properties of Cu‐xCr‐0.4Nb alloys were investigated by changing Cr composition and cooling mode. The as‐cast microstructures and fracture morphologies were observed by SEM. The morphology and size of the precipitated phase were observed by TEM. The hardness, electrical conductivity, and tensile strength of the resulting alloys were also tested. For Cu‐xCr‐0.4Nb alloys cooled in furnace, Cr2Nb particles were formed near the eutectic regions, and destroy the continuity of the eutectic regions. The Cu–Cr–Nb alloys casted in copper mold can significantly increase the solid solubility of solute elements. The microstructures are finer cellular crystals without the segregation of Cr2Nb particle. It makes the microstructures more homogeneous and greatly improves the hardness. After aging, Cr and Cr2Nb particles with the scale of 5 ≈ 10 nm were precipitated in the copper matrix. The hardness, conductivity and tensile strength can reach to 142HB, 90.52% International Annealed Copper Standard (IACS) and 427 MPa, respectively. In addition, after the alloy being softened, the Cr2Nb particles were found near the Cr particles by TEM, which inhibited the high‐temperature coarsening of precipitated Cr phase. The softening temperature of Cu‐1.0Cr‐0.4Nb alloy reaches 600 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic electrode materials have attracted significant attention for rechargeable lithium organic batteries owing to the anticipated electrochemical property and environmentally friendly features. Benzoquinone and naphthoquinone as the simplest quinone substances have been considered as promising cathode materials because of their high theoretical specific capacities and discharge voltages. However, they are soluble in most organic liquid electrolytes, which results in poor electrochemical performance. Herein, a novel molecular cathode material based on naphthoquinone, i.e., 2,2'‐(1,4‐phenylenedithio) bis(1,4‐naphthoquinone) (1,4‐PNQ), is designed and synthesized. It shows greatly decreased solubility as a result of strong intermolecular interactions. In a lithium half cell, it exhibits high carbonyl utilization of close to 100% with a high initial capacity of 231 mAh g‐1. Meanwhile, 1,4‐PNQ presents improved cyclability, retaining a high capacity of 185 mAh g‐1 after 120 cycles. Remarkably, it retains 93.5% of the initial capacity after 500 cycles at 5 C rate. This work provides a novel molecular design strategy to develop naphthoquinone‐derived cathode materials for high performance lithium organic batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the development of Internet of Things and mobile sensor technology has facilitated mobile crowdsensing (MCS) as a popular data collection paradigm. In MCS, requesters publish tasks to the sensing platform, and then the sensing platform assigns tasks to workers who carry mobile sensing devices. In general, the sensing platform matches tasks and workers according to the location and time attributes of tasks and workers. However, most current studies rarely consider location and time attributes, simultaneously. In previous work, it is difficult to achieve real‐time task assignment while protecting worker's location privacy. To tackle the above problem, in this article, we propose a real‐time and privacy‐preserving online task assignment scheme, named Repot. In Repot, the location privacy of workers is protected by using geoindistinguishability. And we design a probabilistic method to quantify the reachability between the obfuscated worker and the task. In addition, the worker‐based distance comparison mechanism and the task‐based distance comparison mechanism are designed to reduce the overall distance of workers in Repot, respectively. The experimental evaluation is performed on a real‐world data set and the results show the feasibility and effectiveness of Repot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile crowdsensing has become a popular data collection paradigm and has been extensively studied. Since the analysis of sensory data usually reveals privacy of mobile users, data aggregation technology is widely used to avoid privacy disclosure. However, traditional privacy‐preserving data aggregation schemes cannot provide aggregate statistics of multidimensional data in fine‐grained areas or resist collusive attacks. Moreover, the cloud platform is not fully trusted, and it is challenging to verify the correctness of data aggregation results. To provide privacy‐preserving multidimensional statistics within fine‐grained areas and verify results of data aggregation, we propose a verifiable privacy‐preserving data aggregation scheme in this article, which is based on data double‐masking, Shamir's secret sharing, and bilinear mapping. Specifically, a key agreement is utilized to establish mask seeds for users, while the users are required to extend mask values and generate the verification key with bilinear mapping. The cloud platform aggregates masked data and provides proof of computational results. Theoretical analysis demonstrates our scheme can protect data and location privacy, verify the aggregation results, and improve the rubustness to failure. The simulation results show that the computational overhead of mobile devices by using the proposed anticollusion scheme is better than that of homomorphic encryption. In addition, the computational complexity of task requesters is less than that of the PVPA scheme for verification of multidimensional aggregation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doped functional polymers, such as magnetic self‐healing polymers based on magnetic inorganic nanoparticles, have raised great attention and been applied in many fields recently due to their superior properties. However, the deficiency of interface compatibility between the inorganic nanoparticles and organic polymers, and the sedimentation and non‐uniform dispersion of the inorganic nanoparticles led to difficulties in the fabrication and development of doped functional polymer materials. In this work, we took magnetic doped self‐healing polymers as an example and proposed an accessible method to solve the problem. We prepared organic‐polymer‐coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles with high interface compatibility and then applied them to successfully synthesize magnetic self‐healing polymers. The average size of the resulting coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles was 8.82±1.09 nm, the practical saturation magnetization of the nanoparticles and the magnetic self‐healing polymers was 83.35, 24.29 emu/g, respectively. In addition, the self‐healing efficiency of the magnetic self‐healing polymers could reach 74.3% when healing for 1 hour and 78.4% when adding a magnetic field compared with 75.8% for the pure self‐healing polymers and 34.5% of magnetic polymers based on pure Fe3O4 nanoparticles. This work may offer a reference in fabricating doped functional polymers based on inorganic nanoparticles with high interface compatibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 5‐year long time series of temperature and horizontal velocity in the Arctic Ocean's Beaufort Gyre is analyzed with the aim of understanding the mechanism driving the observed variability on timescales of tens of days (i.e., subinertial). We employ a coherency/phase analysis on the temperature and horizontal velocity signals, which indicates that subinertial temperature variations arise from vertical excursions of the water column that are driven by horizontal motions across the sloping seafloor. The vertical displacements of the water column (recorded by the temperature signal) show a bottom‐intensified signature (i.e., decay toward the surface), while horizontal velocity anomalies are approximately barotropic below the main halocline. We show that the different characteristics in vertical and horizontal velocities are consistent with topographic Rossby wave theory in the limit of weak vertical decay. In essence, a linearly decaying vertical velocity profile implies that the whole water column is stretched/squashed uniformly with depth when water moves horizontally across the bottom slope. Thus, for the uniform stratification of the deep water column, the response in the relative vorticity field (ensuring conservation of potential vorticity) is also uniform with depth, leading to the observed barotropic horizontal velocity changes. The prevalent topographic Rossby wave activity is discussed in context with Beaufort Gyre spin‐up, dissipation, and stabilization. Plain Language Summary: A 5‐year long time series of temperature and velocity in the Arctic Ocean's Beaufort Gyre is analyzed to understand the source of water motions that occur with periods of tens of days. We find that vertical water motions are driven by horizontal flows across the sloping seafloor. The vertical motions are strongest near the seafloor. On the other hand, horizontal motions in the deep Beaufort Gyre are approximately uniform with depth. We show that these characteristics are consistent with topographic Rossby waves, which are waves associated with water moving horizontally across a seafloor slope. The prevalent topographic Rossby wave activity is discussed in context with energetics and stabilization of the changing Beaufort Gyre. Key Points: Beaufort Gyre mooring measurements of velocity and temperature are analyzed for subinertial signalObservations are consistent with topographic Rossby waves propagating on sloping seafloorTopographic Rossby waves play a role in Beaufort Gyre stabilization [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The objective of this study was to assess left atrial (LA) function with two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2DSTE) in addition to standard echocardiographic assessments in patients with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) before and 1 year after septal ablation (SA). Methods The study included 31 patients with HOCM, who underwent SA. Each patient with HOCM underwent a complete two-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography before and 1 year after the SA. The measurements included basal septal thickness, left ventricular outflow trace (LVOT) gradient, mitral regurgitation (MR) grade, LA dimensions, left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction, and tissue Doppler parameters of lateral mitral annular e ′ and septal mitral annular e ′. The LA wall was tracked on a frame-by-frame basis using 2DSTE, and LA volume waveforms were generated. The maximum LA volume (LAVmax), minimal LA volume (LAVmin), and the LA volume before atrial contraction (LAVpre-a) were measured. The LA reservoir function was calculated as the expansion index and diastolic emptying index. The LA conduit function was calculated as the passive emptying percentage of total emptying (PE) and the passive emptying index (PEI). The LA booster function was calculated as the active emptying percentage of total emptying (AE) and the active emptying index (AEI). Results The LVOT gradient, end-diastolic septal base thickness, the grade of MR, and LA end-diastolic size were significantly decreased in patients with HOCM before and 1 year after the SA (All P<.05). The lateral mitral annular e ′ was significantly increased ( P<.05), and the E/lateral e ′ ratio was significantly decreased ( P<.05), whereas septal mitral annular e ′ was significantly decreased ( P<.05), and the E/septal e ′ ratio was significantly increased ( P<.05). LAVImax, LAVImin, and LAVIpre-a were significantly decreased 1 year after the SA (All P<.05). The expansion and diastolic emptying indices were significantly increased (All P<.05) at 1 year after the SA. PE and PEI were significantly increased (All P<.05). The AE and AEI were significantly decreased (All P<.05). LAVImax, LAVImin, and LAVIpre-a of the responders group were significantly lower than those of the nonresponders group (All P<.05). The expansion and diastolic emptying indices of the responders group were significantly higher than those of the nonresponders group (All P<.05). The PE and PEI of the responders were significantly higher than those of the nonresponders group (All P<.05). The AE and AEI of the responders were significantly lower than those of the nonresponders group (All P<.05). Conclusions We found an improvement in the LA reservoir and conduit function but a reduction in LA booster pump function 1 year after the SA in the responders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung vessel segmentation of computed tomography (CT) images is important in clinical practise and challenging due to difficulties associated with minor size and blurred edges of lung vessels. A vessel segmentation method is proposed for lung images based on a random forest classifier and sparse auto‐encoder features. First, the multi‐scale representations of lung images are obtained using the Gaussian pyramid. Second, a sparse auto‐encoder of three layers is trained using randomly selected patches of these images. Next, the trained weight of the sparse auto‐encoder is used as the convolution kernel to extract features of different scale images. Finally, a random forest classifier is exploited to segment the vessels. The proposed method was evaluated on the original and noise‐added VESSEL12 dataset that is publicly available. Comparison with some classical methods and existing machine learning methods shows that the proposed method reaches the state‐of‐the‐art accuracy. The results also show that a shallow neural network is a powerful feature extraction tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Retinoblastoma is the most frequent primary intraocular tumour and is rapidly gaining importance in Asia. As the survival is markedly dependent on early diagnosis and as information on that is not available from East Asia, we assessed the time interval between symptoms detection and therapy of children treated in the Beijing TongRen Eye Hospital. Methods: The retrospective study consisted of all patients who were treated in the study period from January 1987 to November 2006 in the Beijing TongRen Hospital and for whom the data on delay in diagnosis, age, clinical appearance and histological tumour features were available. Results: The inclusion criteria were met by 572 patients (326 boys) with a mean age of 2.6 ± 1.8. Mean interval between first detection of symptoms and clinical diagnosis and therapy was 4.1 ± 5.9 months (range: 3-36 months). A diagnostic delay of 2 months or >6 months was found for 337 (59%) children and 98 (17%) children, respectively. Diagnostic delay was significantly (p < 0.001) the longest in the 2- to 4-year-old group (5.5 ± 7.4 months). It decreased from the study period 1987-1991 to the period 2002-2006 (p < 0.001). It was significantly associated with the clinical appearance (p = 0.001) and histological finding (p = 0.008). Conclusions: Delay in the diagnosis of retinoblastoma depended on the age of the children, study period, and clinical and histological stage. Because the prognosis is markedly influenced by tumour stage, further improvements in the alertness of parents, family doctors and paediatricians and in the medical infrastructure in China may be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study for measuring children macular thickness with mother's macular thickness. Topics include participants underwent ophthalmic examination slit assisted biomicroscopy of the anterior and posterior sector of the eye, tonometry, and biometry; measurements was taken for statistical analysis; and multivariate linear regression analysis was done for same.

The article presents a study to measure macular thickness in healthy Chinese to obtain normative standard values for this ethnic group using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (OCT). Results of the study show that the macular thickness was highest in the nasal sector which is followed by the superior sector and the inferior sector. The results fit in the histomorphometric study in which the the density of the retinal pigment epithelium cells decreased in the temporal.