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ObjectivesTo identify the source and location of osteoarthritis-induced pain symptoms, we used deep learning techniques to identify imaging abnormalities associated with pain from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of knees with symptoms of symptoms of osteoarthritis pain.MethodsPain-associated areas were detected from the difference between the MRI images of symptomatic knees and their respective counterfactual asymptomatic images generated by a Generative adversarial network. A total of 2,225 pairs of 3D MRI images were extracted from patients with unilateral pain symptoms in the baseline and follow-up cohorts of the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Subsequently, pain-associated effusion-synovitis were characterized into subregions (patellar, central, and posterior) using an anatomical segmentation model.ResultsWe found that the volumes of pain-associated effusion-synovitis were more sensitive and reliable indicators of pain symptoms than the overall volumes in the central and posterior subregions (odds ratio [OR]:3.23 versus 1.77 in the central region, and 3.18 versus 2.66 in the posterior region for severe effusion-synovitis). For mild effusion-synovitis, only pain-associated volume was found to be associated with pain symptoms, but not with overall volume. Patients with significant pain-associated effusion-synovitis in the patellar subregion had the highest increased odds of pain symptoms (OR=4.86).ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to utilize deep-learning-based models for the detection and characterization of pain-associated imaging abnormalities. The developed algorithm can help identifying the source and location of pain symptoms and in designing targeted and individualized treatment regimens.

Graphical abstract Previous work has shown an association between vitamin D3 deficiency and an increased risk for acquiring various inflammatory diseases. Vitamin D3 can reduce morbidity and mortality in these patients via different mechanisms. Lung inflammation is an important event in the initiation and development of respiratory disorders. However, the anti-inflammatory effects of vitamin D3 and the underlying mechanisms remained to be determined. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and mechanisms of action of vitamin D3 (Vit. D) on the expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in vitro and in vivo with or without tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) treatment. Pretreatment with Vit. D reduced the expression of ICAM-1 and leukocyte adhesion in TNF-α-treated A549 cells. TNF-α increased the accumulation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS), while Vit. D reduced this effect. Pretreatment with Vit. D attenuated TNF-α-induced mitochondrial fission, as shown by the increased expression of mitochondrial fission factor (Mff), phosphorylated dynamin-related protein 1 (p-DRP1), and mitophagy-related proteins (BCL2/adenovirus E1B 19 kDa protein-interacting protein 3, Bnip3) in A549 cells. Inhibition of DRP1 or Mff significantly decreased ICAM-1 expression. In addition, we found that Vit. D decreased TNF-α-induced ICAM-1 expression, mitochondrial fission, and mitophagy via the AKT and NF-κB pathways. Moreover, ICAM-1 expression, mitochondrial fission, and mitophagy were increased in the lung tissues of TNF-α-treated mice, while Vit. D supplementation reduced these effects. In this study, we elucidated the mechanisms by which Vit. D reduces the expression of adhesion molecules in models of airway inflammation. Vit. D might be served as a novel therapeutic agent for the targeting of epithelial activation in lung inflammation. Graphical Headlights: • The expression of DRP1 and Mff, mitochondrial fission-related proteins, was increased in TNF-α-treated A549 cells. • The expression of Bnip3 and LC3B, mitophagy-related proteins, was increased in TNF-α-treated A549 cells. • Vit. D pretreatment decreased TNF-α-induced inflammation through the reduction of mitochondrial fission and mitophagy in A549 cells. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10565-021-09629-6.

Background Epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) are used as the standard first-line treatment for patients with advanced EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the impact of clinical factors, including comorbidities and treatment-related adverse events (AEs), on quality of life (QoL) was seldom investigated. Objective We aimed to investigate the association of comorbidities, AEs, and QoL in treatment-naïve advanced NSCLC patients receiving EGFR-TKI treatments. Methods A multi-center prospective observational study was conducted to evaluate QoL and AEs at baseline, the 2nd, 4th, 12th, and 24th week. Clinical characteristics, comorbidities, and pre-treatment laboratory data were recorded. QoL was assessed by using the summary score of the EORTC QLQ-C30 and the dermatology life quality index. The impact of comorbidities, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and AEs on QoL was analyzed by generalized estimating equations. Results A total of 121 patients were enrolled. Diarrhea (p = 0.033), anorexia (p p = 0.017) were significantly associated with a QoL impairment. Among skin toxicities, acneiform rash (p = 0.002), pruritus (p = 0.002), visual analogue scale for pruritus (≥ 3 and p = 0.006; ≥7, p = 0.001) and pain (1–3, p = 0.041) were associated with a QoL impairment. No significant association was found between comorbidities and QoL changes. Conclusion Diarrhea, anorexia, skin pain, and pruritus may cause a deterioration in QoL. NLR may be a potential predictive factor for QoL impairment. Aggressive management and close monitoring are crucial to improve QoL in patients receiving EGFR-TKI therapy.

Offloading tasks to cloud servers has increasingly been used to provide terminal users with powerful computation capabilities for a variety of services. Recently, edge computing, which offloads tasks from user devices to nearby edge servers, has been exploited to avoid the long latency associated with cloud computing. However, edge server placement and task allocation strongly affect the offloading process and the quality of a user’s experience. Therefore, appropriately deploying the edge servers within a network and evenly allocating the workload to the servers are vital. This paper thus considers both the workload of edge servers and the distances involved in offloading tasks to these servers. To improve the user experience, edge server locations are carefully selected and the workload for the servers are allocated in a balanced manner. This scenario is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming problem, and a novel solution that searches for the best server placement using simulated annealing while integrating task allocation using the Lagrangian duality theory with the sub-gradient method is proposed. Numerical simulations verify that the proposed algorithm can achieve better results than conventional heuristics.

Background Particulate matters (PMs) in ambient air pollution are closely related to the incidence of respiratory diseases and decreased lung function. Our previous report demonstrated that PMs-induced oxidative stress increased the expression of proinflammatory intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) through the IL-6/AKT/STAT3/NF-κB pathway in A549 cells. However, the role of O-PMs in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) development and pulmonary fibrosis and the related mechanisms have not been determined. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of O-PMs on the pathogenesis of EMT and pulmonary fibrosis as well as the expression of ETS-1 and NF-κB p65, in vitro and in vivo. Results O-PMs treatment induced EMT development, fibronectin expression, and cell migration. O-PMs affected the expression of the EMT-related transcription factors NF-κB p65 and ETS-1. Interference with NF-κB p65 significantly decreased O-PMs-induced fibronectin expression. In addition, O-PMs affected the expression of fibronectin, E-cadherin, and vimentin through modulating ETS-1 expression. ATN-161, an antagonist of integrin α5β1, decreased the expression of fibronectin and ETS-1 and EMT development. EMT development and the expression of fibronectin and ETS-1 were increased in the lung tissue of mice after exposure to PMs for 7 and 14 days. There was a significant correlation between fibronectin and ETS-1 expression in human pulmonary fibrosis tissue. Conclusion O-PMs can induce EMT and fibronectin expression through the activation of transcription factors ETS-1 and NF-κB in A549 cells. PMs can induce EMT development and the expression of fibronectin and ETS-1 in mouse lung tissues. These findings suggest that the ETS-1 pathway could be a novel and alternative mechanism for EMT development and pulmonary fibrosis.

Geospatial and geometric states of traffic signs are indispensable information for traffic facility maintenance. This study applies a low-cost single camera system to locate and identify tr...

Recent metabolomic studies of sepsis showed that increased circulatory acylcarnitines were associated with worse survival. However, it is unknown whether plasma carnitine and acylcarnitines can reflect the severity of sepsis, and the role of specific acylcarnitines in prognostic assessment need further confirmation. This study aimed to clarify these questions.Prospective multicenter cohort studies with derivation and validation cohort design.ICUs at two medical centers and three regional hospitals in Taiwan.Patients with sepsis and acute organ dysfunction were enrolled. Recruitment of the derivation (n = 90) and validation cohorts (n = 120) occurred from October 2010 through March 2012 and January 2013 through November 2014, respectively.Plasma samples were collected immediately after admission, and the levels of carnitine and acylcarnitines were measured by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.In the derivation cohort, increased plasma levels of short- and medium-chain acylcarnitines were significantly associated with hepatobiliary dysfunction, renal dysfunction, thrombocytopenia, and hyperlactatemia. However, acetylcarnitine is the only acylcarnitine significantly correlating with various plasma cytokine concentrations and also associated with blood culture positivity and 28-day mortality risk. The association between plasma acetylcarnitine and multiple organ dysfunction severity, blood culture positivity, and 28-day mortality, was confirmed in the validation cohort. Patients with high plasma acetylcarnitine (≥ 6,000 ng/mL) had significantly increased 28-day mortality compared with those with plasma acetylcarnitine less than 6,000 ng/mL (52.6% vs 13.9%; hazard ratio, 5.293; 95% CI, 2.340-11.975; p0.001 by Cox proportional hazard model).We confirm that plasma acetylcarnitine can reflect the severity of organ dysfunction, inflammation, and infection in sepsis and can serve as a prognostic biomarker for mortality prediction.

Enzymatic hydrolysates were obtained by hydrolysis of retorted skin gelatin hydrolysates (RSGH) from bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) using three enzymes including collagenase, bromelain, and pancreatin for various times (0, 15.30 and 60 min). As the hydrolysis time increased, degrees of hydrolysis (DH) of all three enzymatic hydrolysates increased. The molecular weight distribution of collagenase-hydrolyzed RSGH (RSGH-Cg) fraction was in the range of 189-686 Da (40.1-50.1%) and 686-6,511 Da (36.7-48.7%) while those of the other enzymatic-hydrolyzed RSGH fractions were mostly in the 686-6,511 Da (58.2-60.8%) range. All enzymatic hydrolysates had more potent antioxidant activity including 2, 2-diphenyt-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, ferrous ion chelating activity, and reducing power than the original RSGH. RSGH-Cg showed the highest activity. The lower IC50 value of angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity of RSGH-Cg correlated with the degree of hydrolysis. This study suggested that collagenase treated bullfrog RSGH is a promising functional ingredient.

Dense stereo matching has been an indispensable technique for 3-D exploitation of imagery, in which semiglobal matching (SGM) is one of the outstanding approaches and has numerous variations in the literature. However, generating accurate disparity in depth discontinuity areas remains challenging, since the cost-aggregation step of SGM providing consistency constraints is sensitive to nonoptimal parametrizations of relevant penalty functions. In this letter, we present a gradual SGM cost aggregation that comprises a penalty tuning process and involves edge feature knowledge. To be more specific, we propose an additional penalty parameter and a weighting formula to handle edge pixels with depth variations, acquiring satisfactory depth estimation by preserving sharp geometric edges and maintaining smoothness without raising extra noise. Evaluations on well-known benchmark and real large-scale images are promising, and the latter case yields point clouds with sharp edges and smooth surfaces showing the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method.

Objective Although association studies in the general population may be relevant for determining susceptibility to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), they may be less applicable for pharmacogenetics research in participants who have already acquired the disease. Patients and methods A genome-wide methylation profiling (generated by HumanMethylation450 BeadChips study was performed on peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 24 patients with AECOPD (acute exacerbation COPD), with good and poor responsiveness to standard corticosteroid treatment. Pyrosequencing was used to replicate the selected CpG sites in 50 patients with AECOPD with standard corticosteroid treatment. Results The results showed the patients with AECOPD with good and poor response to standard corticosteroid treatment have a distinct DNA methylation pattern. A total of 23 CpG loci located in 19 known gene regions, including gene-body and promoter, appeared to be significantly differentially methylated. Replication by pyrosequencing revealed that one CpG site in PSMD8 showed the same trend of differential methylation and reached to statistical significance as the microarray result. Conclusion Our preliminary findings provide evidence for molecular heterogeneity in patients with AECOPD, which may contribute to significant differences in their response to COPD treatment.

Spherical panoramic image processing has received renewed interest in the fields of photogrammetry and computer vision. The difficulty in spherical matching is largely due to inevitable image distortions introduced from the equirectangular projection. In this paper, we present an effective strategy for tackling the problem of distortion to improve the performance of spherical image matching. The effectiveness of the rectified matching is evaluated with simulated data and compared with state-of-art methods. In addition, experiments with respect to matching between omnidirectional and planar images, establishing 2D-to-3D correspondence with lidar, and the pose estimation of a spherical image sequence are conducted. The results verify the utility of the proposed method, which provides stable and evenly distributed corresponding points, and it is suitable for integration with conventional techniques for further 3D exploitation of imagery.

This study presents a novel learning-guided point cloud vectorization to form the vector models of building components. To this end, two learning-based models are modified to realize feature detection and vectorization. The learning-guided scheme can comprehend the definition and mutual relationships of object vertices by learning through existing BIM models and thus predict the vector model of newly given point clouds consequently. Moreover, the effectiveness was verified by using point clouds under different quality levels. The quantitative indices showed promising results, in which the accuracy of object vertex positions achieved 10 cm in beam and column categories and less than 25 cm for all building components. On the other hand, the vertex connections of the vector models reported accuracy above 70%. Therefore, the results can be deemed as fundamental models to improve the automation performance of further refinements or subsequent value-added applications.

Moving object detection and tracking from image sequences has been extensively studied in a variety of fields. Nevertheless, observing geometric attributes and identifying the detected objects for further investigation of moving behavior has drawn less attention. The focus of this study is to determine moving trajectories, object heights, and object recognition using a monocular camera configuration. This paper presents a scheme to conduct moving object recognition with three-dimensional (3D) observation using faster region-based convolutional neural network (Faster R-CNN) with a stationary and rotating Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) camera and close-range photogrammetry. The camera motion effects are first eliminated to detect objects that contain actual movement, and a moving object recognition process is employed to recognize the object classes and to facilitate the estimation of their geometric attributes. Thus, this information can further contribute to the investigation of object moving behavior. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme quantitatively, first, an experiment with indoor synthetic configuration is conducted, then, outdoor real-life data are used to verify the feasibility based on recall, precision, and F1 index. The experiments have shown promising results and have verified the effectiveness of the proposed method in both laboratory and real environments. The proposed approach calculates the height and speed estimates of the recognized moving objects, including pedestrians and vehicles, and shows promising results with acceptable errors and application potential through existing PTZ camera images at a very low cost.

Identifying heterogeneity in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) phenotypes is important for the development of personalized medicine. Genome-wide analysis was used to compare the methylation levels of peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples from 24 acute-exacerbation (AE) COPD patients with good/poor response to corticosteroid therapy and 12 non-COPD controls. Pyrosequencing was employed to validate the genome-wide analysis. In the dataset specific to COPD patients with a good response, enrichment was identified for the following: genes in the Ubl conjugation pathway, nicotinamide nucleotide metabolism, the alkaloid metabolic process, and regulation of the glucose metabolic process. Validation results confirmed CpG sites in PRKAG2 with different methylation levels in COPD patients and normal subjects. The CpG sites of ALOX5AP were specifically associated with a good response. The results suggested that a good response to corticosteroid treatment for AE-COPD should be considered a distinct subtype according to the putative epigenetic mechanism.

This paper shows the different configuration of the near-field flat focusing optics, especially for reflective devices. The physical background to the different focusing mechanisms of near- and far-field focusing is discussed in this paper. These flat focusing mirrors have their transverse invariance, hardly achieved by conventional lenses and engineered planar metalenses.

Stereo matching generating accurate and dense disparity maps is an indispensable technique for 3D exploitation of imagery in the fields of Computer vision and Photogrammetry. Although numerous solutions and advances have been proposed in the literature, occlusions, disparity discontinuities, sparse texture, image distortion, and illumination changes still lead to problematic issues and await better treatment. In this paper, a hybrid-based method based on semi-global matching is presented to tackle the challenges on dense stereo matching. To ease the sensitiveness of SGM cost aggregation towards penalty parameters, a formal way to provide proper penalty estimates is proposed. To this end, the study manipulates a shape-adaptive cross-based matching with an edge constraint to generate an initial disparity map for penalty estimation. Image edges, indicating the potential locations of occlusions as well as disparity discontinuities, are approved by the edge drawing algorithm to ensure the local support regions not to cover significant disparity changes. Besides, an additional penalty parameter 𝑃𝑒 is imposed onto the energy function of SGM cost aggregation to specifically handle edge pixels. Furthermore, the final disparities of edge pixels are found by weighting both values derived from the SGM cost aggregation and the U-SURF matching, providing more reliable estimates at disparity discontinuity areas. Evaluations on Middlebury stereo benchmarks demonstrate satisfactory performance and reveal the potency of the hybrid-based dense stereo matching method.

Background Epidemiological studies have shown that ambient air pollution is closely associated with increased respiratory inflammation and decreased lung function. Particulate matters (PMs) are major components of air pollution that damages lung cells. However, the mechanisms remain to be elucidated. This study examines the effects of PMs on intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression and the related mechanisms in vitro and in vivo. Result The cytotoxicity, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and monocyte adherence to A549 cells were more severely affected by treatment with O-PMs (organic solvent-extractable fraction of SRM1649b) than with W-PMs (water-soluble fraction of SRM1649b). We observed a significant increase in ICAM-1 expression by O-PMs, but not W-PMs. O-PMs also induced the phosphorylation of AKT, p65, and STAT3. Pretreating A549 cells with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), an antioxidant, attenuated O-PMs-induced ROS generation, the phosphorylation of the mentioned kinases, and the expression of ICAM-1. Furthermore, an AKT inhibitor (LY294002), NF-κB inhibitor (BAY11–7082), and STAT3 inhibitor (Stattic) significantly down-regulated O-PMs-induced ICAM-1 expression as well as the adhesion of U937 cells to epithelial cells. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) was the most significantly changed cytokine in O-PMs-treated A549 cells according to the analysis of the cytokine antibody array. The IL-6 receptor inhibitor tocilizumab (TCZ) and small interfering RNA for IL-6 significantly reduced ICAM-1 secretion and expression as well as the reduction of the AKT, p65, and STAT3 phosphorylation in O-PMs-treated A549 cells. In addition, the intratracheal instillation of PMs significantly increased the levels of the ICAM-1 and IL-6 in lung tissues and plasma in WT mice, but not in IL-6 knockout mice. Pre-administration of NAC attenuated those PMs-induced adverse effects in WT mice. Furthermore, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) had higher plasma levels of ICAM-1 and IL-6 compared to healthy subjects. Conclusion These results suggest that PMs increase ICAM-1 expression in pulmonary epithelial cells in vitro and in vivo through the IL-6/AKT/STAT3/NF-κB signaling pathway. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12989-018-0240-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Summary of results from the cytokines antibody array. IL-6 was the most significant changes in angiogenic factors between O-PMs-100 and CON and was selected for further analysis in the present study. Figure S1. The sgp130 Fc did not affect ICAM-1 expression in O-PM treated cells. A549 cells were pretreated with 5 μg/mL of GP130FC for 1 h and then treated with 100 μg/ml of O-PMs for 24 h. Cell lysates were blotted for ICAM-1 expression. (DOCX 108 kb)

Three-dimensional (3D) feature-matching techniques, which are essential for progress towards an automated feature-based procedure, have attracted considerable research attention in both the photogrammetry and computer vision communities. This study introduces a novel matching approach, called RSTG, that comprises four major phases: rotation alignment; scale estimation; translation alignment; and geometry checks. These steps efficiently determine a feature-based correspondence and frame transformation between datasets. RSTG analyses the similarity and relative geometry of features by employing feature observations and their uncertainty; this allows different types of features to be matched exclusively or simultaneously. This study validates the proposed method with both simulated and real datasets, demonstrating its effectiveness with satisfactory matching rates in a diverse range of feature-based point cloud registration tasks. Resume Les techniques de mise en correspondance de primitives en 3D, qui sont essentielles pour le developpement d'une procedure automatisee basee sur les primitives, ont suscite des efforts de recherche dans les deux communautes de la photogrammetrie et de la vision par ordinateur. Cette etude presente une nouvelle approche d'appariement, appelee RSTG, qui comprend quatre phases principales: l'ajustement par rotation; l'estimation de l’echelle; l'ajustement par translation; et les controles geometriques. Ces etapes determinent efficacement une mise en correspondance et une transformation geometrique basees sur les primitives. La methode RSTG analyse la similitude et la geometrie relative des primitives en utilisant les observations des objets et leurs incertitudes; ce qui permet la mise en correspondance de differents types de primitives, separement ou simultanement. Cette etude valide la methode proposee a partir de donnees reelles et simulees, demontrant son efficacite avec des taux d'appariement satisfaisants dans un large eventail de travaux de mise en correspondance de nuages de points bases sur les primitives. Zusammenfassung Fur die dreidimensionale, merkmalsgestutzte Zuordnung finden sowohl im Bereich der Photogrammetrie, als auch im Computervision Bereich umfangreiche Forschungsaktivitaten statt. In dieser Studie wird eine neuartige Bildzuordnungsmethode genannt RSTG vorgestellt. Sie besteht aus vier Hauptphasen: einer Rotationsschatzung, einer Masstabsschatzung, einer Schatzung der Translation und einer letzte Phase mit geometrischen Kontrollen. Durch diese Schritte konnen auf effiziente Art eine merkmalsgestutzte Zuordnung und eine Transformation zwischen Datensatzen bestimmt werden. RSTG analysiert die Ahnlichkeit und die relative Geometrie von Merkmalen durch Anwendung von Merkmalsbeobachtungen und ihren Unsicherheiten. Damit konnen verschiedenartige Merkmale exklusiv oder simultan zugeordnet werden. Fur verschiedenartige Aufgabenstellungen der Registrierung von Punktwolken wird mit simulierten und realen Datensatzen die Effektivitat der vorgeschlagenen Methode validiert und dabei zufriedenstellende Zuordnungsraten erzielt. Resumen Las tecnicas de correspondencia de caracteristicas 3D, esenciales para el desarrollo de procedimientos automaticos, han atraido un considerable interes en la investigacion en fotogrametria y vision por ordenador. Este estudio presenta una novedosa aproximacion para la correspondencia, llamada RSTG, que consta de cuatro fases principales: la alineacion de rotacion; estimacion de la escala; traslacion de la alineacion; y comprobaciones de geometria. Estos pasos determinan de manera eficiente una correspondencia basada en caracteristicas y un marco de transformacion entre conjuntos de datos. RSTG analiza la geometria relativa y similitud de caracteristicas mediante el empleo de observaciones de caracteristicas y su incertidumbre; esto permite que diferentes tipos de caracteristicas puedan tener correspondientes exclusivos o simultaneos. Este estudio valida el metodo propuesto con conjuntos de datos simulados y reales, lo que demuestra su eficacia con tasas satisfactorias de correspondencia en una amplia gama de nubes de puntos. 摘要 三维特征匹配(3D feature matching)技术为提升特征式(feature-based)资料处理自动化程度的关键因素,此课题在计算机视觉及摄影测量领域深受重视。本研究提出之RSTG匹配法可进行不同类型之几何特征匹配,并同时建立特征资料坐标框架间的几何转换关系。RSTG分别代表匹配架构中的四个主要程序,即旋转校正(rotation alignment)、尺度估计(scale estimation)、平移校正(translation alignment)与几何检验(geometry checks)。为有效获得可靠的共轭特征与转换参数估值,RSTG匹配程序不仅分析待匹配特征间的相似性以及相对几何,亦将特征观测量品质纳入考虑。除此之外,不同类型之几何特征可单独或联整合匹配。本文中除了以模拟资料验证RSTG匹配法之正确性外,并以实际资料成功展示将其应用于支援不同类型特征式点云套合作业之匹配功效。

A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4331426 located in a gene-poor region on chromosome 18q11.2 has been associated with tuberculosis (TB) by genome-wide association studies in Ghana and Gambia. In this study, we analyzed the SNP rs4331426 for its association with the risk of TB in the Taiwanese population. The SNP rs4331426 was genotyped in a case-control design that included 377 Han Taiwanese (200 TB patients and 177 controls) and was associated with TB (marginally significant p = 0.078). An increasingly significant association was observed after adjusting for sex in the logistic regression analysis ( p = 0.029). Furthermore, the G carrier (AG genotype) conferred the risk of TB in females ( p = 0.011), but not in males. These findings indicate that the SNP rs4331426 associated with TB in the Han Taiwanese population, especially in females. Further investigations on its role and that of the genomic region surrounding it are warranted.

SummaryObjectivesThe aim of this study was to delineate the association between high macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and interleukin 10 (IL-10) levels in the early phase of sepsis and rapidly fatal outcome.MethodsOne hundred and fifty-three adult subjects with the main diagnosis of severe sepsis (including septic shock) admitted directly from the emergency department of two tertiary medical centers and one regional teaching hospital between January 2009 and December 2011, were included prospectively. MIF and IL-10 levels were measured and outcomes were analyzed by Cox regression analysis according to the following outcomes: rapidly fatal outcome (RFO, death within 48h), late fatal outcome (LFO, death between 48h and 28 days), and survival at 28 days.ResultsAmong the three outcome groups, IL-10 levels were significantly higher in the RFO group (p < 0.001) and no significant differences were seen between the LFO and survivor groups. After Cox regression analysis, each incremental elevation of 1000 pg/ml in both IL-10 and MIF was independently associated with RFO in patients with severe sepsis. Each incremental elevation of 1000 pg/ml in IL-10 increased the RFO risk by a factor of 1.312 (95% confidence interval 1.094–1.575; p=0.003); this was the most significant factor leading to RFO in patients with severe sepsis.ConclusionsPatients with RFO exhibited simultaneously high MIF and IL-10 levels in the early phase of severe sepsis. Incremental increases in both IL-10 and MIF levels were associated with RFO in this patient group, and of the two, IL-10 was the most significant factor linked to RFO.

Pavement performance is a critical factor toward riding comfort experience and drastically affect traffic management and the safety of road users. Since road quality declines over time and current periodic inspection on a vast road network is laborious and costly to the authority. This paper proposes a participatory system to conduct pavement performance monitoring of a country-wide road network based on crowdsourcing spatiotemporal data. By conducting cloud computing of a statistical grading mechanism with respect to the vertical and lateral acceleration behavior, the perception of riding comfort, which has a high correlation with pavement quality, can be reflected faithfully based on the spatiotemporal data acquired from a smartphone-driven progressive web application. Moreover, a deep learning technique is leveraged to identify road anomalies from the on-site images for a cross-check mechanism, which ensures the reliability of the monitoring pavement conditions and facilitates the automation level of road anomaly labeling and documenting. The proposed pavement performance monitoring was validated by the road network of Taipei city, Taiwan, which rendered promising results with an accuracy up to 98% and a false positive rate smaller than 1.3% showing the practicality and adaptability in a complex road network.

Capsular serotypes and antimicrobial susceptibilities of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates that cause invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) were studied and the role of serotype 19A in the development of bacteraemic pneumonia and empyema was investigated. Subjects comprised 98 patients (56 adults and 42 children) who were treated for IPD at a university-affiliated tertiary referral centre in Taiwan during 2009-2012. Serotypes of the isolates were identified using the latex agglutination method. In vitro susceptibilities of the isolates to 13 antimicrobial agents were determined using the broth microdilution method and were interpreted as recommended by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. During the study period, bacteraemic pneumonia was the most common type of infection (43/98; 43.9%), followed by primary bacteraemia (30/98; 30.6%). Serotype 19A was the most common serotype (23/98; 23.5%) in all patients. Fourteen (70.0%) of 20 children (47.6% of all children) with serotype 19A infection had pneumonia with empyema, whilst eight patients had concomitant bacteraemia. 7-valent pneumococcal conjugated vaccine (PCV-7), PCV-10, PCV-13 and 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV-23) had coverage rates of 37.8%, 38.8%, 79.6% and 77.6%, respectively. A substantial increase in the proportion of serotype 15A (6.1%) and 6A (8.2%) was found. In addition, there was a significant reduction in rates of susceptibility of serotype 19A isolates to penicillin, cefotaxime and ceftriaxone but not to azithromycin or any quinolone tested compared with those of non-19A isolates. The prevalence of serotypes 19A, 15A and 6A in patients with IPD increased markedly during the period, especially in children with bacteraemic pneumonia and empyema.

3-D feature matching is the essential kernel in a fully automated feature-based LiDAR point cloud registration. After feasible procedures of feature acquisition, connecting corresponding features in different data frames is imperative to be solved. The objective addressed in this paper is developing an approach coined RSTG to retrieve corresponding counterparts of unsorted multiple 3-D features extracted from sets of LiDAR point clouds. RSTG stands for the four major processes, "Rotation alignment"; "Scale estimation"; "Translation alignment" and "Geometric check," strategically formulated towards finding out matching solution with high efficiency and leading to accomplishing the 3-D similarity transformation among all sets. The workable types of features to RSTG comprise points, lines, planes and clustered point groups. Each type of features can be employed exclusively or combined with others, if sufficiently supplied, throughout the matching scheme. The paper gives a detailed description of the matching methodology and discusses on the matching effects based on the statistical assessment which revealed that the RSTG approach reached an average matching rate of success up to 93% with around 6.6% of statistical type 1 error. Notably, statistical type 2 error, the critical indicator of matching reliability, was kept 0% throughout all the experiments.

Automated close-range photogrammetric network orientation has traditionally been associated with the use of coded targets in the object space to allow for an initial relative orientation (RO) and subsequent spatial resection of the images. Over the past decade, automated orientation via feature-based matching (FBM) techniques has attracted renewed research attention in both the photogrammetry and computer vision (CV) communities. This is largely due to advances made towards the goal of automated relative orientation of multi-image networks covering untargetted (markerless) objects. There are now a number of CV-based algorithms, with accompanying open-source software, that can achieve multi-image orientation within narrow-baseline networks. From a photogrammetric standpoint, the results are typically disappointing as the metric integrity of the resulting models is generally poor, or even unknown, while the number of outliers within the image matching and triangulation is large, and generally too large to allow relative orientation (RO) via the commonly used coplanarity equations. On the other hand, there are few examples within the photogrammetric research field of automated markerless camera calibration to metric tolerances, and these too are restricted to narrow-baseline, low-convergence imaging geometry. The objective addressed in this paper is markerless automatic multi-image orientation, maintaining metric integrity, within networks that incorporate wide-baseline imagery. By wide-baseline we imply convergent multi-image configurations with convergence angles of up to around 90°. An associated aim is provision of a fast, fully automated process, which can be performed without user intervention. For this purpose, various algorithms require optimisation to allow parallel processing utilising multiple PC cores and graphics processing units (GPUs).

Techniques for extracting data from LiDAR point clouds can be refined for increased accuracy. In this paper, the authors elaborate on an innovative approach for registering ground‐based LiDAR point clouds using overlapping scans based on 3D line features. The proposed working scheme consists of three major kernels: a 3D line feature extractor, a 3D line feature matching mechanism, and a mathematical model for simultaneously registering ground‐based LiDAR point clouds of multi‐scans on a 3D line feature basis. All processing chains in this study are featured efficiently and come close to meeting the needs of practical usage. Experiments conducted show the proposed method of employing 3D line features to be a useful alternative or complement to point, surface and other features for LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) point clouds registration. It is especially effective in areas rich in man‐made structures.

Background The active metabolite (1, 25-dihydroxycholecalciferol) of vitamin D (25-hydroxycholecalciferol) leads to the activation of macrophages and the deficiency of vitamin D seems to be involved in the risk of tuberculosis (TB). The effects of vitamin D are exerted by interaction with the vitamin D receptor (VDR) and vitamin D receptor binding protein (VDBP) may be influenced by polymorphisms in the VDR and VDBP genes. In this study, variation in the VDR and VDBP genes was investigated in a Taiwanese population with TB. Methods We typed four VDR polymorphisms of restriction endonuclease sites for ApaI , TaqI , BsmI , and FokI and three VDBP polymorphisms—Thr420Lys, Asp416Glu, and Cys299Cys—in 198 patients with TB and 170 healthy volunteers. Results VDR TaqI , VDR BsmI , and VDBP Asp416Glu were significantly associated with TB susceptibility. Odd ratios of risk genotypes of the above three polymorphisms were 2.16 (95% confidence interval 1.01, 4.65), 2.14 (95% confidence interval 1.06, 4.31), and 2.24 (95% confidence interval 1.04, 4.80), respectively. VDBP haplotype analysis showed Gc1f carriers associated to TB. Conclusion The polymorphisms in the VDR and VDBP genes appeared to be responsible for host susceptibility to human TB in a Taiwanese population.

We describe a previously healthy 52-year-old man with rapidly fatal community-acquired pneumonia caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae. The patient developed acute renal dysfunction, accelerated idioventricular rhythm (acute myocarditis), lactic acidosis and septic shock. He died within 15 hours after admission despite intravenous levofloxacin (750 mg daily) and aggressive medical treatment.

We describe 16 patients with bacteremia caused by Eggerthella lenta ( n = 7), Paraeggerthella hongkongensis ( n = 3), Eubacterium limosum ( n = 4), Eubacterium callanderi ( n = 1), and concomitant Eubacterium limosum / Eggerthella lenta ( n = 1). Nine (56%) patients had polymicrobial bacteremia. The overall 60-day mortality rate was 19%, and all deaths occurred in patients with E. lenta bacteremia.

We report a fatal case of community-acquired empyema thoracis and candidemia caused by Candida albicans. The patient responded poorly to human recombinant activated protein C and intravenous fluconazole treatment and died of profound shock with multiple organ failure 8 days after admission.

Infective endocarditis of the cardiac valves caused by Serratia liquefaciens has never been reported. We describe a fatal case of aortic valve infective endocarditis caused by S. liquefaciens after intravenous injection of amphetamine, complicated by multiple organ dysfunctions.