Weakly-supervised Caricature Face Parsing through Domain Adaptation

A caricature is an artistic form of a person's picture in which certain striking characteristics are abstracted or exaggerated in order to create a humor or sarcasm effect. For numerous caricature related applications such as attribute recognition and caricature editing, face parsing is an essential pre-processing step that provides a complete facial structure understanding. However, current state-of-the-art face parsing methods require large amounts of labeled data on the pixel-level and such process for caricature is tedious and labor-intensive. For real photos, there are numerous labeled datasets for face parsing. Thus, we formulate caricature face parsing as a domain adaptation problem, where real photos play the role of the source domain, adapting to the target caricatures. Specifically, we first leverage a spatial transformer based network to enable shape domain shifts. A feed-forward style transfer network is then utilized to capture texture-level domain gaps. With these two steps, we synthesize face caricatures from real photos, and thus we can use parsing ground truths of the original photos to learn the parsing model. Experimental results on the synthetic and real caricatures demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed domain adaptation algorithm. Code is available at: https://github.com/ZJULearning/CariFaceParsing .Comment: Accepted in ICIP 2019, code and model are available at https://github.com/ZJULearning/CariFaceParsin

Caries arresting effect of silver diamine fluoride on dentine carious lesion with S. mutans and L. acidophilus dual-species cariogenic biofilm

Objectives: This in vitro study investigated the effects of silver diamine fluoride (SDF) on dentine carious lesion with cariogenic biofilm. Study Design: Thirty human dentine blocks were inoculated with Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus acidophilus dual-species biofilm to create carious lesion. They were equally divided into test and control group to receive topical application of SDF and water. After incubation anaerobically using micro-well plate at 37oC for 7 days, the biofilms were evaluated for kinetics, morphology and viability by colony forming units (CFU), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and confocal microscopy (CLSM), respectively. The carious lesion underwent crystal characteristics analysis, evaluation of the changes in chemical structure and density of collagen fibrils using x-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and immune-labeling. Results: The log CFU of S. mutans and L. acidophilus in the test group was significantly lower than control group. SEM and CLSM showed confluent biofilm in control group, but not in test group. XRD showed the loss of crystallinity of dentine due to the dissolution of hydroxyapatite crystal structure in test group was less than control group. FTIR showed that log [Amide I: HPO4 2-] for test vs. control group was 0.31±0.10 vs. 0.57±0.13 (p<0.05). The goldlabeling density in test vs. control group was 8.54±2.44/ìm2 vs. 12.91±4.24/ìm2 (p=0.04). Conclusions: SDF had antimicrobial activity against the cariogenic biofilms and reduced demineralization of dentine

MicroRNA-22 Can Reduce Parathymosin Expression in Transdifferentiated Hepatocytes

Pancreatic acinar cells AR42J-B13 can transdifferentiate into hepatocyte-like cells permissive for efficient hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication. Here, we profiled miRNAs differentially expressed in AR42J-B13 cells before and after transdifferentiation to hepatocytes, using chip-based microarray. Significant increase of miRNA expression, including miR-21, miR-22, and miR-122a, was confirmed by stem-loop real-time PCR and Northern blot analyses. In contrast, miR-93, miR-130b, and a number of other miRNAs, were significantly reduced after transdifferentiation. To investigate the potential significance of miR-22 in hepatocytes, we generated cell lines stably expressing miR-22. By 2D-DIGE, LC-MS/MS, and Western blot analyses, we identified several potential target genes of miR-22, including parathymosin. In transdifferentiated hepatocytes, miR-22 can inhibit both mRNA and protein expression of parathymosin, probably through a direct and an indirect mechanism. We tested two computer predicted miR-22 target sites at the 3′ UTR of parathymosin, by the 3′ UTR reporter gene assay. Treatment with anti-miR-22 resulted in significant elevation of the reporter activity. In addition, we observed an in vivo inverse correlation between miR-22 and parathymosin mRNA in their tissue distribution in a rat model. The phenomenon that miR-22 can reduce parathymosin protein was also observed in human hepatoma cell lines Huh7 and HepG2. So far, we detected no major effect on several transdifferentiation markers when AR42J-B13 cells were transfected with miR-22, or anti-miR-22, or a parathymosin expression vector, with or without dexamethasone treatment. Therefore, miR-22 appears to be neither necessary nor sufficient for transdifferentiation. We discussed the possibility that altered expression of some other microRNAs could induce cell cycle arrest leading to transdifferentiation

A 5-Month-Old Infant with Right Scrotum Swelling

Case presentation:A five-month-old male infant (gestational age 28 weeks, birthweight 1020 gm) with posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus subsequent to prematurity had a left sided ventriculoperitoneal shunt 3 months after birth. Frontal radiography of the chest and abdomen check-up after operation are shown in figure 1. He was referred to our emergency department with a history of right scrotal swelling for several days. Physical examination, he appeared malnourished. He was afebrile. The right scrotum was found to be distended. Bilateral testicles were palpable on both sides. There were no features of shunt malfunction. A complete blood cell count showed the following: leukocyte count, 7900/mm3; segmented neutrophils, 65%; hemoglobin level of 9.3 mg/dL; hematocrit, 25.9%; and platelet, 190000/uL. Other laboratory studies included: glucose, 92 mg/dL; serum urea nitrogen, 10 mg/dL; serum creatinine, 0.2 mg/dL; sodium, 140 mEq/L; potassium, 3.9 mEq/L; C-reactive protein, 2.9mg/L; and prothrombin time with an international normalized ratio of 1.2. His abdomen x-ray is shown in figure 2. 

Age-Dependent Anti-migraine Effects of Valproic Acid and Topiramate in Rats

Background: Valproic acid (VPA) and topiramate (TPM), initially developed as antiepileptics, are approved for migraine prophylaxis in adults but not children. The differences in their antimigraine mechanism(s) by age remain unclear.Methods: A migraine model induced by intra-cisternal (i.c.) capsaicin instillation in pediatric (4–5 weeks) and adult (8–9 weeks) rats was pretreated with VPA (30, 100 mg/kg) or TPM (10, 30, 100 mg/kg). Noxious meningeal stimulation by the irritant capsaicin triggered trigeminovascular system (TGVS) activation mimicking migraine condition, which were assessed peripherally by the depletion of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) in sensory nerve fibers of the dura mater, the increased CGRP immunoreactivity at trigeminal ganglia (TG) and centrally by the number of c-Fos-immunoreactive (c-Fos-ir) neurons in the trigeminocervical complex (TCC). Peripherally, CGRP released from dural sensory nerve terminals of TG triggered pain signal transmission in the primary afferent of trigeminal nerve, which in turn caused central sensitization of the TGVS due to TCC activation and hence contributed to migraine.Results: In the VPA-treated group, the central responsiveness expressed by reducing the number of c-Fos-ir neurons, which had been increased by i.c. capsaicin, was significant in pediatric, but not adult, rats. Inversely, VPA was effective in peripheral inhibition of elevated CGRP immunoreactivity in the TG and CGRP depletion in the dura mater of adult, but not pediatric, rats. In TPM group, the central responsiveness was significant in both adult and pediatric groups. Peripherally, TPM significantly inhibited capsaicin-induced CGRP expression of TG in adult, but not pediatric, rats. Interestingly, the capsaicin-induced depletion of CGRP in dura was significantly rescued by TPM at high doses in adults, but at low dose in pediatric group.Conclusion: These results suggest VPA exerted peripheral inhibition in adult, but central suppression in pediatric migraine-rats. In contrast, TPM involves both central and peripheral inhibition of migraine with an optimal therapeutic window in both ages. These findings may clarify the age-dependent anti-migraine mechanism of VPA and TPM, which may guide the development of new pediatric anti-migraine drugs in the future