Structure characterizations and protein resistance of chitosan membranes selectively crosslinked by poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate

[[abstract]]Chitosan (CS) is a fragile material with a high modulus of elasticity. Improving its flexibility as well as membrane permeability are the key aspects that need to be addressed for using CS as a biomaterial. Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) has several unique properties such as protein resistance, low toxicity, immunogenicity, and good solubility in both water and organic solvents. In this study, a vinyl compound was grafted to the C-6 position of CS by protection-grafting-deprotection. The vinyl CS was then crosslinked with PEG dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) selectively at its C-6 position to form CS-g-PEG copolymer membranes. Analyses from spectra of Fourier-transform infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance confirmed the chemical structure of the crosslinking CS-g-PEG copolymer membranes. Thermal and mechanical properties of the prepared CS-g-PEG membranes were measured and well-correlated to their structures. The incorporation of PEGDMA into the CS increased the material’s flexibility and thermal resistance. Finally, the CS-g-PEG membranes were found to have good protein resistance and blood compatibility; therefore, it has potential application as the biomedical material especially for hemodialysis.[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]電子

Supervised Collective Classification for Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing utilizes the wisdom of crowds for collective classification via information (e.g., labels of an item) provided by labelers. Current crowdsourcing algorithms are mainly unsupervised methods that are unaware of the quality of crowdsourced data. In this paper, we propose a supervised collective classification algorithm that aims to identify reliable labelers from the training data (e.g., items with known labels). The reliability (i.e., weighting factor) of each labeler is determined via a saddle point algorithm. The results on several crowdsourced data show that supervised methods can achieve better classification accuracy than unsupervised methods, and our proposed method outperforms other algorithms.Comment: to appear in IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) Workshop on Networking and Collaboration Issues for the Internet of Everythin

Techniques for Deblurring Faces in Images by Utilizing Multi-Camera Fusion

This publication describes techniques for deblurring faces in images by utilizing multi-camera (e.g., dual-camera) fusion processes. In the techniques, multiple cameras of a computing device (e.g., wide-angle camera, an ultrawide-angle camera) concurrently capture a scene. A multi-camera fusion technique is utilized to fuse the captured images together to generate an image with increased sharpness while preserving the brightness of the scene and other details under a motion scene. The images are processed by a Deblur Module, which includes an optical flow machine-learned model for generating a warped ultrawide-angle image, a subject mask trained to identify and mask faces detected in the wide-angle image, and an occlusion mask for handling occlusion artifacts. The warped ultrawide-angle image, the raw wide-angle image (with blurred faces), the sharp ultrawide-angle image, the subject mask, and the occlusion map are then stacked and merged (fused) using a machine-learning model to output a sharp image without the presence of motion blur. This publication further describes techniques utilizing adaptive multi-streaming to optimize power consumption and dual camera usage on computing devices

Thoracic aorta pseudoaneurysm with hemopericardium: unusual presentation of warfarin overdose

There have been few case reports which discuss a relationship between warfarin overdose and aortic pseudoaneurysm leakage. We report the case of a female receiving warfarin who presented with dsypnea. Her international normalized ratio was > 10. Chest radiograph revealed cardiomegaly, and chest computed tomography (CT) showed a bulging pouch-like lesion below the aortic arch greater than 6x6 cm in size and a fluid collection suggesting blood in the pericardium. Thoracic endovascular aneurysm repair (TEVAR) was successfully performed by a cardiovascular surgeon. Aortic pseudoaneurysm formation and leakage may be considered as a rare complication in patients receiving warfarin therapy. Further study regarding warfarin use and the incidence of pseudoaneurysm leakage is needed

Automatic Removal of Lens Flare Artifacts

A strong light source in the field of view of a camera can cause small circular artifacts, known as lens flares or ghost dots, to appear at the mirror location of the light source with respect to the image center. Lens flares occur due to internal reflections within the lenses of the camera. While lens flares can be reduced with lens coatings, it is difficult to entirely eliminate lens flares. This disclosure describes software techniques to automatically detect and remove lens flare artifacts in images. Per the techniques, the presence and position of a strong light source in the field of view is detected in the captured image. Based on the detection, the flare ghosting dot is identified at the mirror location. The flare ghosting dot is masked using inpainting techniques and the result is evaluated. The described techniques can reliably remove lens flares of a wide variety of flare shapes. The techniques can be implemented in any camera device, including smartphone cameras

HLA typing in Taiwanese patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma

AbstractBackground/purposeThe human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system, which plays a vital role in immunity, is the most polymorphic gene complex found in the human genome. This study investigated HLA-related alleles and haplotypes in Taiwanese patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).Materials and methodsHLA class I (HLA-A and HLA-B) antigens and class II (HLA-DRB1) alleles were determined in 105 patients with OSCC and compared with those in 190 healthy controls. The antigens were measured serologically and the alleles by sequencing-based typing.ResultsCompared with the control group, patients with OSCC had higher frequencies of HLA-A24, HLA-B54, HLA-DRB1*0405, and HLA-DRB1*1201, while they had lower frequencies of HLA-B58 and HLA-DRB1*1302. Haplotype frequencies also varied significantly in individuals with OSCC, with certain haplotypes associated with lymph node metastases or a particular tumor stage.ConclusionThese results suggest that HLA genetic factors influence susceptibility to OSCC and perhaps to lymph node metastasis and tumor progression

Synthesis and Characterization of Chitosan membrane Selectively Crosslinked by Poly(ethylene glycol) Dimethacrylate

[[abstract]]In this study, poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) was used to crosslink chitosan (CS) chains selectively at the C-6 position of pyranose. Before the crosslinking reaction, the amino group at the C-2 position was protected by reaction with phthalic anhydride (PA) to form phthaloylated chitosan (PACS). From the results of elemental analysis, the degree of substitution was calculated to be 0.88, indicating most amino groups were converted to phthalimide groups. Subsequently, 3-isopropenyl-α,α-dimethylbenzyl isocyanate (TMI), a vinyl compound containing an isocyanate group, was used to react with the PACS, preferentially with the hydroxyl group at the C-6 position. The reaction with TMI thus provided multiple double bonds along the CS chain. The phthalimide group was then reduced to the original amino group by the hydrazine solution at 80oC. Finally, the vinyl CS was crosslinked with PEGDMA at the C-6 position by a UV-initiated free-radical polymerization. FTIR and NMR were used to analyze the chemical structure of PEG-crosslinked CS. Thermal and mechanical properties of the PEG-crosslinked CS membrane were measured and related to their structures. The PEGDMA-crosslinked CS membrane has potential applications as a biomedical material.[[sponsorship]]Japanese Society for Chitin and Chitosan[[cooperationtype]]國外[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20131004~20131008[[booktype]]電子版[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Yonago, Japa