BoIR: Box-Supervised Instance Representation for Multi-Person Pose Estimation

Single-stage multi-person human pose estimation (MPPE) methods have shown great performance improvements, but existing methods fail to disentangle features by individual instances under crowded scenes. In this paper, we propose a bounding box-level instance representation learning called BoIR, which simultaneously solves instance detection, instance disentanglement, and instance-keypoint association problems. Our new instance embedding loss provides a learning signal on the entire area of the image with bounding box annotations, achieving globally consistent and disentangled instance representation. Our method exploits multi-task learning of bottom-up keypoint estimation, bounding box regression, and contrastive instance embedding learning, without additional computational cost during inference. BoIR is effective for crowded scenes, outperforming state-of-the-art on COCO val (0.8 AP), COCO test-dev (0.5 AP), CrowdPose (4.9 AP), and OCHuman (3.5 AP). Code will be available at https://github.com/uyoung-jeong/BoIRComment: Accepted to BMVC 2023, 19 pages including the appendix, 6 figures, 7 table

The promoter -1031(T/C) polymorphism in tumor necrosis factor-alpha associated with polycystic ovary syndrome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A <it>tumor necrosis factor-alpha </it>is a multifunctional pro-inflammation cytokine, which has been considered as one of pathogenic factors for various diseases. The promoter -1031(T/C) polymorphism in the <it>tumor necrosis factor-alpha </it>gene was reported that it plays a part in reproduction-related diseases. Among these, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is known to be a common gynecological disease of women in reproductive age women. Here, we performed a comparative study of -1031(T/C) polymorphism of <it>TNF-alpha </it>gene with PCOS in a Korean population.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The -1031(T/C) polymorphism of <it>TNF-alpha </it>gene was analyzed by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) in a total of 217 PCOS patients and 144 matched female controls of healthy women. And statistical analysis was performed using HapAnalyzer. <it>X</it>²test and logistic regression were utilized analyze the association between two groups. A <it>p</it>-value under 0.05 was considered statistically significant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The genotype and allelic frequencies were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE). There was strong association between the -1031(T/C) polymorphism in the promoter region of <it>TNF-alpha </it>gene and PCOS (<it>p</it>-value = 0.0003, odd ratio (OR) = 2.53). In addition, the frequency of C allele was significantly higher in PCOS patients compared with controls. Sequence analyses also showed the -1031(T/C) polymorphism of <it>TNF-alpha </it>gene.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This is the first study on the -1031(T/C) polymorphism of <it>TNF-alpha </it>gene in PCOS. We concluded that the -1031(T/C) polymorphism of <it>TNF-alpha </it>gene is associated with PCOS in a Korean population. Therefore, it is possible that it may be considered as a clinical biomarker to diagnose for PCOS, and is helpful in understanding the etiology for the pathogenesis of PCOS.</p

Dissociating stable nitrogen molecules under mild conditions by cyclic strain engineering

All quiet on the nitrogen front. The dissociation of stable diatomic nitrogen molecules (N-2) is one of the most challenging tasks in the scientific community and currently requires both high pressure and high temperature. Here, we demonstrate that N-2 can be dissociated under mild conditions by cyclic strain engineering. The method can be performed at a critical reaction pressure of less than 1 bar, and the temperature of the reaction container is only 40 degrees C. When graphite was used as a dissociated N* receptor, the normalized loading of N to C reached as high as 16.3 at/at %. Such efficient nitrogen dissociation is induced by the cyclic loading and unloading mechanical strain, which has the effect of altering the binding energy of N, facilitating adsorption in the strain-free stage and desorption in the compressive strain stage. Our finding may lead to opportunities for the direct synthesis of N-containing compounds from N-2

Involvement of mTOR signaling in sphingosylphosphorylcholine-induced hypopigmentation effects

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sphingosylphosphorylcholine (SPC) acts as a potent lipid mediator and signaling molecule in various cell types. In the present study, we investigated the effects of SPC on melanogenesis and SPC-modulated signaling pathways related to melanin synthesis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Melanin production was measured in Mel-Ab cells. A luciferase assay was used to detect transcriptional activity of the MITF promoter. Western blot analysis was performed to examine SPC-induced signaling pathways.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>SPC produced significant hypopigmentation effects in a dose-dependent manner. It was found that SPC induced not only activation of Akt but also stimulation of mTOR, a downstream mediator of the Akt signaling pathway. Moreover, SPC decreased the levels of LC3 II, which is known to be regulated by mTOR. Treatment with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin eliminated decreases in melanin and LC3 II levels by SPC. Furthermore, we found that the Akt inhibitor LY294002 restored SPC-mediated downregulation of LC3 II and inhibited the activation of mTOR by SPC.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our data suggest that the mTOR signaling pathway is involved in SPC-modulated melanin synthesis.</p

Improved elimination of motion artifacts from a photoplethysmographic signal using a Kalman smoother with simultaneous accelerometry

A photoplethysmography (PPG) signal provides very useful information about a subject's hemodynamic status in a hospital or ubiquitous environment. However, PPG is very vulnerable to motion artifacts, which can significantly distort the information belonging to the PPG signal itself. Thus, the reduction of the effects of motion artifacts is an important issue when monitoring the cardiovascular system by PPG. There have been many adaptive techniques to reduce motion artifacts from PPG signals. In the present study, we compared a method based on the fixed-interval Kalman smoother with the usual adaptive filtering algorithms, e.g. the normalized least mean squares, recursive least squares and the conventional Kalman filter. We found that the fixed-interval Kalman smoother reduced motion artifacts from the PPG signal most effectively. Therefore, the use of the fixed-interval Kalman smoother can reduce motion artifacts in PPG, thus providing the most reliable information that can be deduced from the reconstructed PPG signals.This study was supported by the IT R&D program of MKE/KEIT (2009-S-014-01, On the development of Sensing-Based Emotive Service Mobile Handheld Devices) and also by a grant from the Institute of Medical System Engineering in the GIST, Korea

Pepper EST database: comprehensive in silico tool for analyzing the chili pepper (Capsicum annuum) transcriptome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is no dedicated database available for Expressed Sequence Tags (EST) of the chili pepper (<it>Capsicum annuum</it>), although the interest in a chili pepper EST database is increasing internationally due to the nutritional, economic, and pharmaceutical value of the plant. Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing of the ESTs of chili pepper cv. Bukang have produced hundreds of thousands of complementary DNA (cDNA) sequences. Therefore, a chili pepper EST database was designed and constructed to enable comprehensive analysis of chili pepper gene expression in response to biotic and abiotic stresses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We built the Pepper EST database to mine the complexity of chili pepper ESTs. The database was built on 122,582 sequenced ESTs and 116,412 refined ESTs from 21 pepper EST libraries. The ESTs were clustered and assembled into virtual consensus cDNAs and the cDNAs were assigned to metabolic pathway, Gene Ontology (GO), and MIPS Functional Catalogue (FunCat). The Pepper EST database is designed to provide a workbench for (i) identifying unigenes in pepper plants, (ii) analyzing expression patterns in different developmental tissues and under conditions of stress, and (iii) comparing the ESTs with those of other members of the <it>Solanaceae </it>family. The Pepper EST database is freely available at <url>http://genepool.kribb.re.kr/pepper/</url>.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The Pepper EST database is expected to provide a high-quality resource, which will contribute to gaining a systemic understanding of plant diseases and facilitate genetics-based population studies. The database is also expected to contribute to analysis of gene synteny as part of the chili pepper sequencing project by mapping ESTs to the genome.</p

Phosphatidylcholine induces apoptosis of 3T3-L1 adipocytes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Phosphatidylcholine (PPC) formulation is used for lipolytic injection, even though its mechanism of action is not well understood.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The viability of 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes and differentiated 3T3-L1 cells was measured after treatment of PPC alone, its vehicle sodium deoxycholate (SD), and a PPC formulation. Western blot analysis was performed to examine PPC-induced signaling pathways.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PPC, SD, and PPC formulation significantly decreased 3T3-L1 cell viability in a concentration-dependent manner. PPC alone was not cytotoxic to CCD-25Sk human fibroblasts at concentrations <1 mg/ml, whereas SD and PPC formulation were cytotoxic. Western blot analysis demonstrated that PPC alone led to the phosphorylation of the stress signaling proteins, such as p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase and c-Jun N-terminal kinase, and activated caspase-9, -8, -3 as well as cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase. However, SD did not activate the apoptotic pathways. Instead, SD and PPC formulation induced cell membrane lysis, which may lead to necrosis of cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>PPC results in apoptosis of 3T3-L1 cells.</p

Adapting to the projected epidemics of Fusarium head blight of wheat in Korea under climate change scenarios

Fusarium head blight (FHB) of wheat, mainly caused by Fusarium graminearum Schwabe, is an emerging threat to wheat production in Korea under a changing climate. The disease occurrence and accumulation of associated trichothecene mycotoxins in wheat kernels strongly coincide with warm and wet environments during flowering. Recently, the International Panel for Climate Change released the 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) climate change scenarios with shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). In this study, we adopted GIBSIM, an existing mechanistic model developed in Brazil to estimate the risk infection index of wheat FHB, to simulate the potential FHB epidemics in Korea using the SSP245 and SSP585 scenarios of CMIP6. The GIBSIM model simulates FHB infection risk from airborne inoculum density and infection frequency using temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity during the flowering period. First, wheat heading dates, during which GIBSIM runs, were predicted over suitable areas of winter wheat cultivation using a crop development rate model for wheat phenology and downscaled SSP scenarios. Second, an integrated model combining all results of wheat suitability, heading dates, and FHB infection risks from the SSP scenarios showed a gradual increase in FHB epidemics towards 2100, with different temporal and spatial patterns of varying magnitudes depending on the scenarios. These results indicate that proactive management strategies need to be seriously considered in the near future to minimize the potential impacts of the FHB epidemic under climate change in Korea. Therefore, available wheat cultivars with early or late heading dates were used in the model simulations as a realistic adaptation measure. As a result, wheat cultivars with early heading dates showed significant decreases in FHB epidemics in future periods, emphasizing the importance of effective adaptation measures against the projected increase in FHB epidemics in Korea under climate change

Efficacy and safety of rapid intermittent bolus compared with slow continuous infusion in patients with severe hypernatremia (SALSA II trial): a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background Hypernatremia is a common electrolyte disorder in children and elderly people and has high short-term mortality. However, no high-quality studies have examined the correction rate of hypernatremia and the amount of fluid required for correction. Therefore, in this study, we will compare the efficacy and safety of rapid intermittent bolus (RIB) and slow continuous infusion (SCI) of electrolyte-free solution in hypernatremia treatment. Methods This is a prospective, investigator-initiated, multicenter, open-label, randomized controlled study with two experimental groups. A total of 166 participants with severe hypernatremia will be enrolled and divided into two randomized groups; both the RIB and SCI groups will be managed with electrolyte-free water. We plan to infuse the same amount of fluid to both groups, for 1 hour in the RIB group and continuously in the SCI group. The primary outcome is a rapid decrease in serum sodium levels within 24 hours. The secondary outcomes will further compare the efficacy and safety of the two treatment protocols. Conclusion This is the first randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of RIB correction compared with SCI in adult patients with severe hypernatremia