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More than half of long-duration spaceflight astronauts have experienced ophthalmic abnormalities, collectively termed spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). Microgravity-induced elevation in intracranial pressure(ICP), especially optic nerve cerebral spinal fluid pressure (ON-CSFp) due to headward fluid shifts is the primary hypothesized contributor to SANS. However there is limited non-invasive method to monitor ON-CSFp. The present longitudinal study aims to quantify the area of the optic nerve subarachnoid space(ONSSA) in the axial plane behind the optic disc, that is filled with CSF and expands when ON-CSFp is elevated, during and after head-down tilt (HDT) bed rest (BR) and assess its association with relative anthropometric and systemic parameters.72 eyes of 36 healthy male volunteers were included and underwent 90-day strict 6° HDT BR .The measurements were performed on day 30, 60, and 90 of HDT BR and at six recovery time points extending to 180-day in supine position. Portable B-scan ultrasound was performed binocularly, using a 12 MHz linear array probe. The measurement of the optic nerve sheath and calculation of the ONSSA from 3mm to 5mm posterior to the optic disc were performed with ImageJ 1.51 analysis software by two experienced observers in a masked manner. In comparison to recovery day 180, ONSSA from 3mm to 5mm posterior to the optic disc exhibited significant distention on BR day 30,60 and 90, with a mean change of 0.4mm2 (95% CI:0.12 to 0.7 mm2, P = .002), 0.35 mm2 (95% CI:0.02 to 0.69mm2, P = .001), and 0.4 mm2 (95% CI:0.05 to 0.75 mm2, P = .015), respectively. Univariate linear regression analysis showed increased ONSSA was correlated with increased mean blood pressure (Beta = 0.092; 95%CI, 0.016 to 0.169; P = .019). Terrestrially, ONSSA distension is associated with increased ICP. The results indicated that 90-day HDT BR induced elevated ICP especially ON-CSFp in comparison to supine level.Advanced quantitative portable ultrasound-based assessment of the ONSSA could better our understanding the role of ON-CSFp on SANS.

Fasting has been demonstrated to improve health and slow aging in human and other species; however, its impact on the human body in the confined environment is still unclear. This work studies the effects of long-term fasting and confined environment on the cardiovascular activities of human via a 10-day fasting experiment with two groups of subjects being in confined (6 subjects) and unconfined (7 subjects) environments respectively and undergoing the same four-stage fasting/feeding process. It is found that the confinement has significant influences on the autonomic regulation to the heart rate during the fasting process by altering the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is manifested by the significant higher pNN50, rMSSD, and Ln-HF of heart rate variability (HRV) (p

Increasing evidence indicates that immune system dysfunction affects anti‐N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis. This study aims to investigate the relationship between adhesion molecules and the pathophysiology in anti‐NMDAR encephalitis. Soluble forms of Intercellular adhesion molecule‐1 (sICAM‐1), vascular adhesion molecule‐1 (sVCAM‐1), and L‐selectin (sL‐selectin), were measured in the CSF and serum of 26 participants with anti‐NMDAR encephalitis, 11 patients with schizophrenia and 22 patients with noninflammatory disorders. CSF levels of sICAM‐1, sVCAM‐1 and sL‐selectin were significantly elevated in the anti‐NMDAR encephalitis group. sVCAM‐1 levels were positively associated with modified Rankin scale score in anti‐NMDAR encephalitis patients at the onset and 3‐month follow‐up.

Fasting has been demonstrated to improve health and slow aging in human and other species; however, its impact on the human body in the confined environment is still unclear. This work studies the effects of long-term fasting and confined environment on the cardiovascular activities of human via a 10-day fasting experiment with two groups of subjects being in confined (6 subjects) and unconfined (7 subjects) environments respectively and undergoing the same four-stage fasting/feeding process. It is found that the confinement has significant influences on the autonomic regulation to the heart rate during the fasting process by altering the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is manifested by the significant higher pNN50, rMSSD, and Ln-HF of heart rate variability (HRV) (p 0.05) and slower heart rate (p 0.01) in the confined group than that in the unconfined group. Furthermore, the long-term fasting induces a series of changes in both groups, including reduced level of serum sodium (p 0.01), increased the serum calcium (p 0.05), prolonged QTc intervals (p 0.05), and reduced systolic blood pressures (p 0.05). These effects are potentially negative to human health and therefore need to be treated with caution. Study of the effects of fasting and confinement on the cardiovascular activities.

Background This study aimed to identify hotspots in research on clinical competence measurements from 2012 to 2016. Methods The authors retrieved literature published between 2012 and 2016 from PubMed using selected medical subject headings (MeSH) terms. They used BibExcel software to generate high-frequency MeSH terms and identified hotspots by co-word analysis and cluster analysis. Results The authors searched 588 related articles and identified 31 high-frequency MeSH terms. In addition, they obtained 6 groups of high-frequency MeSH terms that reflected the domain hotspots. Conclusions This study identified 6 hotspots of domain research, including studies on influencing factors and perception evaluation, improving and developing measurement tools, feedback measurement, measurement approaches based on computer simulation, the measurement of specific students in different learning phases, and the measurement of students’ communication ability. All of these research topics could provide useful information for educators and researchers to continually conduct in-depth studies.

In this paper, we investigate the problem of image de-noising. Here, the theory of morphological component analysis is employed to separate the image to be de-noised into some layers with different morphological components. In this paper, images are decomposed into two parts: smooth and textural parts. As noise only exists in the textural parts, we utilize bilateral filter to smooth textural parts. Finally, the smooth parts and the filtered textual parts are combined to get the image free of noise. The algorithm is tested experimentally, and the results show that it is superior to other state-of-art algorithms.

Gynura bicolor DC is not only an edible plant but also a kind of traditional Chinese herbal medicine. G. bicolor DC grown in controlled environmental chambers under 3 CO 2 concentrations [450 (ambient), 1500 (elevated), 8000 (super-elevated) μmol mol −1 ] and 3 LED lighting conditions [white (WL), 85% red + 15% blue (RB15), 70% red + 30% blue (RB30) ] were investigated to reveal plausible antioxidant anabolic responses to CO 2 enrichment and LED light quality. Under ambient and elevated CO 2 levels, blue light increasing from 15% to 30% was conducive to the accumulation of anthocyanins and total flavonoids, and the antioxidant activity of extract was also increased, but plant biomass was decreased. These results demonstrated that the reinforcement of blue light could induce more antioxidant of secondary metabolites, but depress the effective growth of G. bicolor DC under ambient and elevated CO 2 levels. In addition, compared with the ambient and elevated CO 2 levels, the increased anthocyanins, total flavonoids contents and antioxidant enzyme activities of G. bicolor DC under super-elevated CO 2 level could serve as important components of antioxidative defense mechanism against CO 2 stress. Hence, G. bicolor DC might have higher tolerance to CO 2 stress.

As a new generation biodiesel feedstock, microalgae have most potential to replace fossil fuel. However, the limited scale and high cost are two bottleneck problems. Efficient microwave-assisted lipid extraction technologies and suitable light conditions for Chlorella Sorokiniana need further study for lowering the cost. In this study, three photoperiod groups(24L:0D, 12L:12D, 0L:24D), three illumination intensity groups (1800 lux, 3600 lux, 5400 lux)and four light spectrum groups (Red, green, blue, and white) were used to culture Chlorella Sorokiniana to investigate those effects on algae growth rate and biomass accumulation. The suitable microwave treatment was also studied to achieve an optimizing quantum fracturing technology. 400 w, 750 w and 1000 w microwave power were set and 60 °C, 75 °C, 90 °C microwave conditions were investigated. The results showed that Chlorella Sorokiniana under 24L:0D photoperiod with 5400 lux white light can achieve better growth rate. The 90 °C / 1000w microwave treatment was identified as the most simple, easy, and effective way for lipid extraction from Chlorella Sorokiniana. As the raw material of biodiesel production, C18:1, C18:2 and C18:3 have accounted for important components of fatty acid in Chlorella Sorokiniana. Therefore, Chlorella Sorokiniana is a good raw material for the production of good quality biodiesel under suitable and efficient technologies.

To solve the problem of extracting the features of green fluorescent protein image, this paper proposes a method of combining a HSV model with watershed algorithm. This article based on the HSV color model, make full use of the color and brightness of image, by setting the brightness of the threshold to deal the image with binarization processing, then travel through the median filter to deal the noise of the image, finally uses the mathematical morphology watershed algorithm to realize the separation of target and background. We can prove that this algorithm has achieved very good results.

To investigate the changes in brain regional homogeneity in first-onset major depressive disorders (MDDs) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).Eighteen patients with first-onset MDDs and twenty gender- and age-matched healthy controls underwent resting-state fMRI scans to compare the regional homogeneities of the brain regions.Compared with the normal controls, the patients with MDDs showed significantly decreased regional homogeneity in the left posterior cingulated gyrus, bilateral inferior temporal gyrus, bilateral superior temporal gyrus, left inferior frontal gyrus, left hippocampa gyrus, left posterior central gyrus, left angular gyrus, right amygdala, right orbital frontal gyrus, right supplementary motor area, and right cerebellar lobe.Patients with first-onset MDDs have dysfunctions in the brain regions closed related with cognition and emotional control.

When one is speaking, lips change regularly. Therefore, Lip contour extraction is very meaningful. In this paper, for lip color images, this paper extracts lip contour by means of the RGB-based improved region growing algorithm. Through RGB three components, the relationship between color from and adjacent pixels is calculated. According to certain rules, seed pixels are automatically selected, and regional growth and de-noising and smoothing with median filtering are implemented. And finally, watershed algorithm is applied to get lip contour. Experimental results show that this method is simple to achieve the desired effect and good performance.

To probe pilot's attention allocation, workload and cognition by eye movement indexes analysis. Six subjects participated the experiment. They were asked to fly three simulation scenarios: landing, climbing and cruise flight. Five eye movement indexes which they were the percentage of fixation point, the percentage of dwell time, average fixation duration, average pupil size and average saccade amplitude were recorded and analyzed. The result indicated that eye movement data was obviously different in out view and instrument panel; also it was different among three tasks. Conclusions can be made from the result: subjects spent most time on outside view while leaving small time to make quick crosschecking to the instrument; Subjects show different pattern of attention allocation through three flight tasks; the recorded eye movement indexes are the good indicators to pilots' attention allocation, workload and cognition.

Visual speech-lip reading, making the computer understands what do speakers want to express through observing the lip direction of them. The most simply method of lip reading in early stage is to compare between characters from the frozen pictures and templates being stored. It neglects the character is changing with time. This method is very simply, but it only can classify the simple elements not the words, so it couldn't render great serves to speech recognition. Afterwards the adoption of behavioral characteristics is becoming more widespread. Because of the superior of Hidden Markov model (HMM), it can be applied in speech recognition widely. In recent years, it is also used in the research of lip-reading recognition. The classical HMM model makes two hypotheses: hidden expropriation hypothesis: the state at t+1 is only conditioned by the state at t, not the state before; the expropriation hypothesis from hidden state to visible state: the visible state at t only conditioned by the hidden state at t, not the state before. Such kind of hypothesis is not very reasonable in some practical application (such as lip-reading). In some kind condition, the state at t is not only conditioned by t-1, but also t-2. Therefore this thesis revises the assumed condition classical HMM to derive a new HMM model and algorithm, and applying it into lip-reading recognition to increase the discrimination.