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IntroductionThe most common sites of clear cell renal cell carcinoma(ccRCC) metastasis are the lung, bones, liver and brain; eyelid metastasis is a rare occurrence.Case presentationWe report a case of ccRCC metastasis to the left eyelid after radical nephrectomy, and remission after sunitinib treatment.ConclusionsAlthough the probability of eyelid metastasis rate is very low, tumor metastasis to the eyelid skin is possible after radical nephrectomy. Therefore, any rash like changes on the skin during the review procedure cannot be ignored by the physician.

ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to summarize the surgical experience of renal artery cold perfusion combined with laparoscopic nephron preserving surgery for the treatment of complex renal angiomyolipoma and to evaluate the safety and feasibility of this surgical protocol.Materials and methodsClinical data of nine patients who received renal artery cold perfusion combined with laparoscopic nephron preserving surgery for complex renal angiomyolipoma in our hospital from February 2017 to August 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. The study parameters included imaging findings, total renal function before and after surgery, glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of affected kidney before and after surgery, and related complications.ResultsEight of the nine patients successfully completed the operation, one patient was intolerant to renal artery balloon implantation, and the success rate of the operation was 88.89%. The mean maximum tumor diameter was 6.8 cm, and RENAL score was 7 points. Postoperative total renal function and GFR of the affected kidney had no significant changes compared with that before surgery, and imaging examination showed no tumor residue or recurrenceConclusionThis surgical procedure is safe and feasible for complex renal angiomyolipoma and can be used as a surgical option for renal hamartoma. The long-term effect needs to be confirmed by further studies.

Medical image registration is a fundamental and indispensable element in medical image analysis, which can establish spatial consistency among corresponding anatomical structures across various medical images. Since images with different modalities exhibit different features, it remains a challenge to find their exact correspondence. Most of the current methods based on image-to-image translation cannot fully leverage the available information, which will affect the subsequent registration performance. To solve the problem, we develop an unsupervised multimodal image registration method named DTR-GAN. Firstly, we design a multimodal registration framework via a bidirectional translation network to transform the multimodal image registration into a unimodal registration, which can effectively use the complementary information of different modalities. Then, to enhance the quality of the transformed images in the translation network, we design a multiscale encoder–decoder network that effectively captures both local and global features in images. Finally, we propose a mixed similarity loss to encourage the warped image to be closer to the target image in deep features. We extensively evaluate methods for MRI-CT image registration tasks of the abdominal cavity with advanced unsupervised multimodal image registration approaches. The results indicate that DTR-GAN obtains a competitive performance compared to other methods in MRI-CT registration. Compared with DFR, DTR-GAN has not only obtained performance improvements of 2.35% and 2.08% in the dice similarity coefficient (DSC) of MRI-CT registration and CT-MRI registration on the Learn2Reg dataset but has also decreased the average symmetric surface distance (ASD) by 0.33 mm and 0.12 mm on the Learn2Reg dataset.

Abstract Background Inguinal lymphadenectomy (iLAD) is effective for penile carcinoma treatment, but usually results in many complications. This study aims to clinically evaluate the feasibility and clinical significance of a laparoscopic radical iLAD approach partly preserving great saphenous vein branches for penile carcinoma patients. Methods A total of 48 patients with penile cancer who underwent laparoscopic radical iLAD with retention of the great saphenous vein in Henan Cancer Hospital from 2012 Jan to 2020 Dec were included in this study. Sixteen penile carcinoma patients who underwent laparoscopic radical iLAD preserving parts of superficial branches of the great saphenous vein were identified as the sparing group, and the matched 32 patients who incised those branches were identified as control group. This new procedure was performed by laparoscopy, preserving parts of superficial branches of the great saphenous vein, superficial lateral and medial femoral veins. Clinicopathological features and perioperative variables were recorded. Postoperative complications, including skin flap necrosis, lymphorrhagia, and lower extremity edema were analyzed retrospectively. Results We found that the operative time of the sparing group is significantly longer than the control group (p = 0.011). There was no statistical difference in intraoperative blood loss, the lymph node number per side, average time to remove the drainage tube and postoperative hospital stay between the two groups. Compared to the control group, the sparing group showed a significantly decreased incidence of lower extremity edema (p = 0.018). The preservation of parts of superficial branches of the great saphenous vein was mainly decreased the incidence of edema below ankle (p = 0.034). Conclusions This study demonstrated that the iLAD with preserving parts of superficial branches of the great saphenous vein, with a decreased incidence of postoperative complications, is a safe and feasible approach for penile cancer.

BackgroundMuscle invasive bladder urothelium carcinoma is a common urinary tract tumor. With the deepening of research, more and more treatment methods are applied in clinical practice, extending the life of patients. Among them, the clinical application of chemotherapeutic intravesical hyperthermia and tumor immunotherapy provides new ideas for our treatment.Case reportAn 81-year-old female patient was diagnosed with stage T2N0M0 bladder cancer in our hospital. Because the patient and her family were keen to preserve her bladder, they declined surgery and opted for combined chemotherapy. After informed consent from the patient and her family, she received cisplatin combined with gemcitabine intravesical hyperthermic infusion. But the side effects of cisplatin made her intolerable to chemotherapy. With their informed consent we changed her to intravenous tislelizumab in combination with gemcitabine intravesical hyperthermic infusion to continue her treatment. During the subsequent follow-up visits, we found a surprising effect of the treatment.ConclusionGemcitabine intravesical hyperthermia therapy combined with intravenous tislelizumab in the treatment of muscle invasive bladder urothelium carcinoma may provide a new possible therapeutic strategy of some patients who are inoperable or refuse surgery.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract in the treatment of autoimmune diseases.MethodsDatabases such as Embase, Web of Science, PubMed and The Cochrane Library were searched from the database establishment to February 2022 to collect RCTs of Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Then the literature was screened and the data were extracted. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.3 software.ResultsA total of 34 records were included, involving 31 RCTs and 10 types of autoimmune disease. Among them, ankylosing spondylitis (AS) involves one RCT, Behcet ‘s disease (BD) involves one RCT, Crohn ‘s disease involves two RCTs, multiple sclerosis (MS) involves two RCTs, oral lichen planus involves six RCTs, psoriasis involves two RCTs, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) involves five RCTs, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) involves two RCTs, arteritis involves one RCT, ulcerative colitis (UC) involves nine RCTs. Among them, most of the RCTs of ulcerative colitis (UC), oral lichen planus, RA showed that curcumin and curcumin extracts improved clinical or laboratory results. Crohn ‘ s disease, MS, SLE, psoriasis included two RCTs; they all showed improvements (at least one RCT reported improvements in clinical outcomes). AS, BD and arteritis included only one RCT, and the clinical results showed improvement. However, due to the small number of RCTs and the small number of patients involved in each disease, there is still a need for more high-quality RCTs.ConclusionCurcumin and Curcuma longa Extract had good clinical efficacy in the treatment of Psoriasis, UC and RA, so Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract could be used in the treatment of the above diseases in the future. The results of Meta-analysis showed that Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract did not show efficacy in the treatment of oral lichen planus, while Takayasu arteritis, SLE, MS, AS, BD and CD did not report sufficient clinical data for meta-analysis. Therefore, large-sample, multi-center clinical trials are still needed for revision or validation.

BackgroundModern pharmacological research found that the chemical components of Curcuma longa L. are mainly curcumin and turmeric volatile oil. Several recent randomized controlled trials (RCT) have shown that curcumin improves symptoms and inflammation in patients with arthritis.MethodsPubmed, Cochran Library, CNKI, and other databases were searched to collect the randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Then, the risk of bias of RCTs were assessed and data of RCTs were extracted. Finally, RevMan 5.3 was utilized for meta-analysis.ResultsTwenty-nine (29) RCTs involving 2396 participants and 5 types of arthritis were included. The arthritis included Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Osteoarthritis (OA), Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and gout/hyperuricemia. Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract were administered in doses ranging from 120 mg to 1500 mg for a duration of 4-36 weeks. In general, Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract showed safety in all studies and improved the severity of inflammation and pain levels in these arthritis patients. However, more RCTs are needed in the future to elucidate the effect of Curcumin and Curcuma longa Extract supplementation in patients with arthritis, including RA, OA, AS and JIA.ConclusionCurcumin and Curcuma longa Extract may improve symptoms and inflammation levels in people with arthritis. However, due to the low quality and small quantity of RCTs, the conclusions need to be interpreted carefully.

Despite eye-opening advances in developing novel therapeutics for hard-to-treat diseases, treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is still known as the challenge of generations. By the way, scrutinizing and shedding light on a major cause of AD, i.e., fibrillation of β amyloid (Aβ) peptides, have paved the way to find an effective therapy for this life-threatening disease in the foreseeable future. In this study, we endeavored to push forward with research on AD therapy, even as much as an inch, by fabricating and evaluating a theranostic system based on iron oxide nanoparticles-loaded hyaluronic acid nanogels (Fe3O4-HyA NGs). Fe3O4 nanoparticles were fabricated via a facile co-precipitation method and were loaded in HyA NGs in situ by formation of NGs using a thiolated HyA (HyA-SH) precursor. Standard structural analysis was performed on Fe3O4-HyA NGs, and the results revealed the NGs were negatively charged, which led to relatively poor adsorption of plasma proteins, and sized at the range of 120–150 nm. Also, Fe3O4-HyA NGs showed a superparamagnetic property with a magnetic saturation of about 62.8 emu/g indicating the successful loading of Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Besides, findings of the cytotoxicity analysis could primarily show the NGs did not pose a noticeable risk to normal astrocyte cells (i.e., 96.7% cell viability at 100 µg/ml after 48 h treatment). Moreover, in vitro magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analysis could reveal the noticeable potential ability of the Fe3O4-HyA NGs to generate negative contrast by reducing both T2-weighted and T2*-weighted MR signal intensities with a relaxation rate (r2) of about 120.87 (1/mM.sec). Finally, Fe3O4-HyA NGs exhibited a potential ability to impede Aβ aggregation by around 44% at 10 µM; also, they could induce disaggregation of Aβ fibrils by about 13% at 10 µM. Hence, Fe3O4-HyA NGs could be a promising choice for AD theranostics and could be further scrutinized in vitro and in vivo.

Abstract Background Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a common malignant tumour of the genitourinary system. We aimed to analyse the potential value of metastasis-related biomarkers, circulating tumour cells (CTCs) and the proliferative marker Ki-67 in the diagnosis of RCC. Methods Data from 24 laparoscopic radical nephrectomies (RNs) and 17 laparoscopic partial nephrectomies (PNs) were collected in 2018. The numbers and positive rates of CTCs and circulating tumour microemboli (CTM) in the peripheral blood were obtained at three different time points: just before surgery, immediately after surgery and 1 week after surgery. Ki-67 protein expression was evaluated in the RCC tissue by immunohistochemistry. Results Except for the statistically significant association between the preoperative CTC counts and tumour size, no association between the number and positive rate of perioperative CTCs and clinicopathological features was found. The CTC counts gradually decreased during the perioperative period, and at 1 week after surgery, they were significantly lower than those before surgery. High Ki-67 expression was significantly positively correlated with preoperative CTC counts. In addition, Ki-67 expression was higher in the high CTC group (≥ 5 CTCs). Conclusion Our results suggest that surgical nephrectomy is associated with a decrease in CTC counts in RCC patients. CTCs can act as a potential biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of RCC. A careful and sufficient long-term follow-up is needed for patients with high preoperative CTC counts.

ABSTRACT: Regularly checking the quantity of stored grain in warehouses is essential for the grain safety of a country. However, current manual inspection ways fail to get real-time measurement results and require spending a lot of manpower and resources. In this paper, we proposed a computer vision-based method to automatically monitor the change in grain quantity of a granary. The proposed method was motivated from the observation that warehouse managers can use a camera to remotely monitor the grain security of a granary, which determines whether grain quantity is reduced by checking the distance between the grain surface and the grain loading line at the outlet of a granary. To this end, images were first captured by a camera, and a two-level spatial constraints-based SVM classifier was learned to detect the grain surface and the grain loading line of the images. During the test phase, the detected result of a test image obtained by SVM was further refined by GrabCut with higher order potentials to get the more accurate segmentation result. Finally, the area between the grain surface and the grain loading line was calculated, and then compared with the previous measured one to determine whether the grain surface had dropped. The experiment results validate the effectiveness of the two-level spatial constraints SVM and the strategy for monitoring the change in grain quantity.

Objective. To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in the treatment of osteoarthritis (OA). Methods. Chinese databases (such as CNKI and SinoMed) and English databases (such as PubMed and Embase) were searched to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of MSCs in the treatment of OA. The retrieval time is from inception to October 10, 2021. The literature was strictly selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, data was extracted, and the quality was evaluated. RevMan 5.3 software was used for meta-analysis. STATA was used to evaluate publication bias. The registration number of this systematic review and meta-analysis is CRD42021277145. Results. A total of 28 RCTs involving 1494 participants were included. The primary outcomes showed that MSCs may reduce WOMAC pain and VAS at the 3rd-month follow-up [WOMAC pain: -3.81 (-6.95, -0.68), P=0.02. VAS: -1.11 (-1.53, -0.68), P

Multimodal medical image registration has an important role in monitoring tumor growth, radiotherapy, and disease diagnosis. Deep-learning-based methods have made great progress in the past few years. However, its success depends on large training datasets, and the performance of the model decreases due to overfitting and poor generalization when only limited data are available. In this paper, a multimodal medical image registration framework based on few-shot learning is proposed, named reverse-net, which can improve the accuracy and generalization ability of the network by using a few segmentation labels. Firstly, we used the border enhancement network to enhance the ROI (region of interest) boundaries of T1 images to provide high-quality data for the subsequent pixel alignment stage. Secondly, through a coarse registration network, the T1 image and T2 image were roughly aligned. Then, the pixel alignment network generated more smooth deformation fields. Finally, the reverse teaching network used the warped T1 segmentation labels and warped images generated by the deformation field to teach the border enhancement network more structural knowledge. The performance and generalizability of our model have been evaluated on publicly available brain datasets including the MRBrainS13DataNii-Pro, SRI24, CIT168, and OASIS datasets. Compared with VoxelMorph, the reverse-net obtained performance improvements of 4.36% in DSC on the publicly available MRBrainS13DataNii-Pro dataset. On the unseen dataset OASIS, the reverse-net obtained performance improvements of 4.2% in DSC compared with VoxelMorph, which shows that the model can obtain better generalizability. The promising performance on dataset CIT168 indicates that the model is practicable.

Background: Bladder cancer (BLCA) ranks 10th in incidence among malignant tumors and 6th in incidence among malignant tumors in males. With the application of immune therapy, the overall survival (OS) rate of BLCA patients has greatly improved, but the 5-year survival rate of BLCA patients is still low. Furthermore, not every BLCA patient benefits from immunotherapy, and there are a limited number of biomarkers for predicting the immunotherapy response. Therefore, novel biomarkers for predicting the immunotherapy response and prognosis of BLCA are urgently needed.Methods: The RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data, clinical data and gene annotation files for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) BLCA cohort were extracted from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Xena Browser. The BLCA datasets GSE31684 and GSE32894 from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database were extracted for external validation. Immune-related genes were extracted from InnateDB. Significant differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified using the R package “limma,” and Gene Ontology (GO) analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis for the DEGs were performed using R package “clusterProfiler.” Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis were used to construct the signature model. The infiltration level of each immune cell type was estimated using the single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) algorithm. The performance of the model was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and calibration curves.Results: In total, 1,040 immune-related DEGs were identified, and eight signature genes were selected to construct a model using LASSO regression analysis. The risk score of BLCA patients based on the signature model was negatively correlated with OS and the immunotherapy response. The ROC curve for OS revealed that the model had good accuracy. The calibration curve showed good agreement between the predictions and actual observations.Conclusions: Herein, we constructed an immune-related eight-gene signature that could be a potential biomarker to predict the immunotherapy response and prognosis of BLCA patients.

Background: Bladder cancer (BLCA) is a common malignant tumor of the genitourinary system, and there is a lack of specific, reliable, and non-invasive tumor biomarker tests for diagnosis and prognosis evaluation. Homeobox genes play a vital role in BLCA tumorigenesis and development, but few studies have focused on the prognostic value of homeobox genes in BLCA. In this study, we aim to develop a prognostic signature associated with the homeobox gene family for BLCA.Methods: The RNA sequencing data, clinical data, and probe annotation files of BLCA patients were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), Xena Browser. First, differentially expressed homeobox gene screening between tumor and normal samples was performed using the “limma” and robust rank aggregation (RRA) methods. The mutation data were obtained with the “TCGAmutation” package and visualized with the “maftools” package. Kaplan–Meier curves were plotted with the “survminer” package. Then, a signature was constructed by logistic regression analysis. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed using “clusterProfiler.” Furthermore, the infiltration level of each immune cell type was estimated using the single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) algorithm. Finally, the performance of the signature was evaluated by receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve and calibration curve analyses.Results: Six genes were selected to construct this prognostic model: TSHZ3, ZFHX4, ZEB2, MEIS1, ISL1, and HOXC4. We divided the BLCA cohort into high- and low-risk groups based on the median risk score calculated with the novel signature. The overall survival (OS) rate of the high-risk group was significantly lower than that of the low-risk group. The infiltration levels of almost all immune cells were significantly higher in the high-risk group than in the low-risk group. The average risk score for the group that responded to immunotherapy was significantly lower than that of the group that did not.Conclusion: We constructed a risk prediction signature with six homeobox genes, which showed good accuracy and consistency in predicting the patient’s prognosis and response to immunotherapy. Therefore, this signature can be a potential biomarker and treatment target for BLCA patients.

The prognosis of patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma is dismal. Platinum-based chemotherapy is still the main first-line treatment for advanced urothelial carcinoma, while immunotherapy can be used as a first-line treatment option for people who cannot tolerate platinum. Immunotherapy is preferred in the second-line treatment of bladder urothelial carcinoma. PD-1 inhibitors (Pembrolizumab, nivolumab and atezolizumab) and PD-L1 inhibitors (Ddurvalumab and avelumab) have not been approved for the treatment of advanced urothelial cancer in China. We describe a patient with advanced urothelial carcinoma experienced disease progression after gemcitabine chemotherapy. Following a treatment of domestic PD-1 inhibitor (sintilimab), the patient achieved a durable complete response with mild toxicity. This case indicates that PD-1 inhibitor sintilimab might be a second-line treatment choice for advanced urothelial carcinoma.

Vibration isolation of a floating raft system typically found in a marine application is of concern in this paper. Housed on the raft are electrical motors each driving two counter rotating shafts with eccentric masses attached. An experimental study is described in which vibration transmitted to a large-scale, laboratory-based hull-like structure is attenuated by using three measures. They are, the use of vibration isolators between the raft and the hull-like structure, adjustment of the phase of the electrical supply between the motors to minimize vibration transmitted through the isolators, and the application of an active vibration control system using hydraulic actuators placed in parallel with the isolators. The results show that this combination of measures is extremely effective at reducing the vibration transmission to the hull-like structure, and consequent reduction the sound radiation. It is more effective than the application of any of the vibration control measures applied by themselves.

Clustering refers to the problem of partitioning data into several groups according to the predefined criterion. Graph-based method is one of main clustering approaches and has been shown impressive performance in many literatures. The core issue of graph-based clustering is how to construct a good adjacency graph. A large number of works employ the sparse representation of data as the similarity measure by ℓ1 regularization. However, due to the flat nature of the ℓ1 norm, such methods solve the sparse representation of each data point individually, which do not take into account the global structure of data. To exploit the global and essential structure in data, in contrast to existing methods, we propose to learn a graph with group sparsity. To incorporate more information into the graph, we also use the manifold regularization with adaptive similarity during the process of group sparse self-representation. The resulting model is handled by Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM). Further, we employ Iterative Re-weighted Least Squares (IRLS) algorithm and threshold operator to solve the ADMM subproblems. Experimental results on real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of our method compared to the competing clustering methods.

Abstract Background Advanced pancreatic cancer (PC) has very poor prognosis with present treatments, thus necessitating continued efforts to find improved therapeutic approaches. Both preclinical and preliminary clinical data indicate that cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells are an effective tool against various types of solid tumors. Here, we conducted a study to determine whether CIK cell-based therapy (CBT) can improve the outcomes of advanced PC. Methods Eighty-two patients with advanced PC, whose predicted survival time was longer than 3 months, were analyzed retrospectively. Of all the patients, 57 individuals were receiving chemotherapy, while the remaining 25 individuals were treated with CBT. Results The overall survival analysis was based on 48 deaths in the 57 patients in the chemotherapy group (84.2 %) and 18 deaths in the 25 patients in the CBT group (72.0 %). In the CBT group, the median overall survival time was 13.5 months, as compared to 6.6 months in the chemotherapy group (hazard ratio for death, 0.39; 95 % confidence interval, 0.23 to 0.65; p

An active vibration isolation system is retrofitted to a diesel generator set in a tugboat to determine the effectiveness of such a system in a realistic practical environment. The system consists of six bespoke inertial actuators chosen to make minimal modifications to the machinery arrangement, and a DSP-based controller. Six accelerometers are collocated with the actuators on the top of six isolators to act as error sensors, and six accelerometers are placed below the isolators to give a measure of the global vibration of the ships structure below the generator set. A hydrophone is also placed in the water to give an indication of the underwater noise due to the generator. The control strategy employed is six-input and six-output decentralized adaptive feedforward control with the reference signal being derived from the signal from an optical tachometer on shaft between the engine and the generator. To suppress the vibration at all the dominant forcing frequencies, an electrical circuit generated the half engine orders required from the measured reference signal. The experimental results show that the combination of the active control system and the passive isolators is effective in reducing the global vibration and the acoustic pressure at the hydrophone position.

Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic auto-inflammatory disorder of joints. The present study aimed to identify the key genes in RA for better understanding the underlying mechanisms of RA. Methods The integrated analysis of expression profiling was conducted to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in RA. Moreover, functional annotation, protein–protein interaction (PPI) network and transcription factor (TF) regulatory network construction were applied for exploring the potential biological roles of DEGs in RA. In addition, the expression level of identified candidate DEGs was preliminarily detected in peripheral blood cells of RA patients in the GSE17755 dataset. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was conducted to validate the expression levels of identified DEGs in RA. Results A total of 378 DEGs, including 202 up- and 176 down-regulated genes, were identified in synovial tissues of RA patients compared with healthy controls. DEGs were significantly enriched in axon guidance, RNA transport and MAPK signaling pathway. RBFOX2, LCK and SERBP1 were the hub proteins in the PPI network. In the TF-target gene network, RBFOX2, POU6F1, WIPF1 and PFKFB3 had the high connectivity with TFs. The expression status of 11 candidate DEGs was detected in GSE17755, the expression levels of MAT2A and NSA2 were significantly down-regulated and CD47 had the up-regulated tendency in peripheral blood cells of patients with RA compared with healthy individuals. qRT-PCR results of MAT2A, NSA2, CD47 were compatible with our bioinformatics analyses. Discussion Our study might provide valuable information for exploring the pathogenesis mechanism of RA and identifying the potential biomarkers for RA diagnosis.

This paper investigates active broadband noise control inside vehicles with a multichannel controller. The noncausal inversion of a practical nonminimum-phase secondary path is formulated, and its influence on noise-reduction performance is analyzed. Based on multiple coherence between reference signals and undesired noise, a novel formulation for identifying primary paths with correlated excitation signals is presented and a causal optimal controller is proposed. Meanwhile, the proposed controller can be used as an accurate predictor to estimate the maximal achievable noise reduction and provide a reference to improve the control systems. The robustness of the proposed algorithm is examined by varying the uncertainty of primary paths. Finally, the performance of the proposed causal optimal controller is validated using the data measured in a car. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms traditional algorithms and achieves a significant broadband noise reduction in time-invariant systems.

Accurate lung CT image segmentation is of great clinical value, especially when it comes to delineate pathological regions including lung tumor. In this paper, we present a novel framework that jointly segments multiple lung computed tomography (CT) images via hierarchical Dirichlet process (HDP). In specifics, based on the assumption that lung CT images from different patients share similar image structure (organ sets and relative positioning), we derive a mathematical model to segment them simultaneously so that shared information across patients could be utilized to regularize each individual segmentation. Moreover, compared to many conventional models, the algorithm requires little manual involvement due to the nonparametric nature of Dirichlet process (DP). We validated proposed model upon clinical data consisting of healthy and abnormal (lung cancer) patients. We demonstrate that, because of the joint segmentation fashion, more accurate and consistent segmentations could be obtained.

There is an ever-increasing requirement for higher power vibrating platforms to test large-scale structures. Whilst this may be achieved with a single shaker, this is an expensive option. An alternative solution is to drive a platform with two or more smaller shakers. To do this effectively, however, requires the identical amplitude and phase response of the shakers. In practice, due to manufacturing tolerances and uneven loading, this is not possible without a control system. The design and implementation of such a system is the objective of this paper. An adaptive FxLMS algorithm is used in the synchronous control of a dual-shaker system, considering the dynamic coupling between the shakers. A simulation is presented to verify the effectiveness of the control algorithm before the control system is integrated with practical a dual-shaker system driving a vibrating platform. It is shown that there are significant differences between the controlled and the uncontrolled system, demonstrating the efficacy of the control approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]