Texture-based palmprint retrieval using a layered search scheme for personal identification

2005-2006 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

A public mesh watermarking algorithm based on addition property of Fourier transform

Author name used in this publication: David ZhangCenter for Multimedia Signal Processing and Department of ComputingVersion of RecordPublishe

Fast block-based image restoration employing the improved best neighborhood matching approach

2005-2006 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Disruption of the blood-testis barrier integrity by bisphenol A in vitro: Is this a suitable model for studying blood-testis barrier dynamics?

Bisphenol A, an estrogenic environmental toxicant, has been implicated to have hazardous effects on reproductive health in humans and rodents. However, there are conflicting reports in the literature regarding its effects on male reproductive function. In this study, it was shown that in adult rats treated with acute doses of bisphenol A, a small but statistically insignificant percentage of seminiferous tubules in the testes displayed signs of germ cell loss, consistent with some earlier reports. It also failed to disrupt the blood-testis barrier in vivo. This is possibly due to the low bioavailability of free bisphenol A in the systemic circulation. However, bisphenol A disrupted the blood-testis barrier when administered to immature 20-day-old rats, consistent with earlier reports concerning the higher susceptibility of immature rats towards bisphenol A. This observation was confirmed using primary Sertoli cells cultured in vitro with established tight junction-permeability barrier that mimicked the blood-testis barrier in vivo. The reversible disruption of Sertoli cell tight junction barrier by bisphenol A was associated with an activation of ERK, and a decline in the levels of selected proteins at the tight junction, basal ectoplasmic specialization, and gap junction at the blood-testis barrier. Studies by dual-labeled immunofluorescence analysis and biotinylation techniques also illustrated declining levels of occludin, connexin 43, and N-cadherin at the cell-cell interface following bisphenol A treatment. In summary, bisphenol A reversibly perturbs the integrity of the blood-testis barrier in Sertoli cells in vitro, which can also serve as a suitable model for studying the dynamics of the blood-testis barrier. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.postprin

Watermark extraction by magnifying noise and applying global minimum decoder

Author name used in this publication: David ZhangCenter for Multimedia Signal Processing and Department of ComputingVersion of RecordPublishe

Computerized tongue diagnosis based on Bayesian networks

2004-2005 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Approximate entropy based pulse variability analysis

Author name used in this publication: David ZhangVersion of RecordPublishe

Helical Flow in Healthy and Diseased Patient-specific Coronary Bifurcations

Helical flow (HF) exists in healthy and diseased coronary bifurcations and was found to have a protective atherosclerotic vascular effect in other vessels. However, the role of HF in patient-specific human coronary arteries still needs further study, and is therefore the objective of this study in both healthy and diseased bifurcations. Computational studies were conducted on 16 patient-specific coronary bifurcations, including eight healthy and eight identical cases with idealized narrowing to represent disease. In general, higher HF intensity may have a favorable effect as it corelated to the reduction of the percentage vessel area exposed to adverse time averaged wall shear stress (TAWSS%) in both healthy and diseased models. The HF intensity and distribution of each model varies due to the complex shape of patient-specific models. The presence of disease appears to have an important impact on the downstream HF patterns and the TAWSS distributions. Clinical Relevance - By understanding the relationship between HF and hemodynamics, HF may be used as a predictor for the formation and progression of atherosclerotic plaque in coronary arteries instead of near-wall WSS measures, which can be determined with higher accuracy in vivo

Assessing the policy impacts on non-ferrous metals industry's CO2 reduction: Evidence from China

The nonferrous metals industry (NMI) consumes a great amount of energy, and is a typical high CO2 emission sector. The NMI is one of the eight most concerning industries in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report. In this study, we summarized policies that impact Chinese NMI's development and grouped them into three types: energy structure policies, energy efficiency improving policies and production-scale policies. Based on those quantitative policy goals, a bottom-up model has been developed to study the CO2 emissions of five NMI's major sub-sectors from 2010 to 2030. The results showed that if China's central government could stick to the CO2 reduction policy strength of 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020), then the copper, lead and zinc industries can reach their emissions peak before 2030. Furthermore, if the Chinese government restricts the production of primary aluminum of 46.2 million tons in 2025, then the CO2 emissions of China's non-ferrous industry could reach the peak in that year, when the CO2 emissions peak is 297 million tons. Having benefited from the effective CO2 reduction policies of NMI, China may reach its ambitious CO2 peaking goals more easily

A new approach to automated retinal vessel segmentation using multiscale analysis

Author name used in this publication: David ZhangRefereed conference paper2006-2007 > Academic research: refereed > Refereed conference paperVersion of RecordPublishe