209 research outputs found
Detach and Adapt: Learning Cross-Domain Disentangled Deep Representation
While representation learning aims to derive interpretable features for
describing visual data, representation disentanglement further results in such
features so that particular image attributes can be identified and manipulated.
However, one cannot easily address this task without observing ground truth
annotation for the training data. To address this problem, we propose a novel
deep learning model of Cross-Domain Representation Disentangler (CDRD). By
observing fully annotated source-domain data and unlabeled target-domain data
of interest, our model bridges the information across data domains and
transfers the attribute information accordingly. Thus, cross-domain joint
feature disentanglement and adaptation can be jointly performed. In the
experiments, we provide qualitative results to verify our disentanglement
capability. Moreover, we further confirm that our model can be applied for
solving classification tasks of unsupervised domain adaptation, and performs
favorably against state-of-the-art image disentanglement and translation
methods.Comment: CVPR 2018 Spotligh
A Microcantilever-based Gas Flow Sensor for Flow Rate and Direction Detection
The purpose of this paper is to apply characteristics of residual stress that
causes cantilever beams to bend for manufacturing a micro-structured gas flow
sensor. This study uses a silicon wafer deposited silicon nitride layers,
reassembled the gas flow sensor with four cantilever beams that perpendicular
to each other and manufactured piezoresistive structure on each
micro-cantilever by MEMS technologies, respectively. When the cantilever beams
are formed after etching the silicon wafer, it bends up a little due to the
released residual stress induced in the previous fabrication process. As air
flows through the sensor upstream and downstream beam deformation was made,
thus the airflow direction can be determined through comparing the resistance
variation between different cantilever beams. The flow rate can also be
measured by calculating the total resistance variations on the four
cantilevers.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association
(http://irevues.inist.fr/handle/2042/16838
Relationships between serum HER2 ECD, TIMP-1 and clinical outcomes in Taiwanese breast cancer
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Serum levels of the extracellular domain of HER2/neu (HER2 ECD) have been demonstrated to be associated with clinical outcomes. A disintegrin and metalloproteinase-10, a sheddase of HER2/neu, can drive cancer progression and its activity is inhibited by tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1). However, elevated TIMP-1 expression has been associated with a poor prognosis of breast cancer. Therefore, this study was performed to explore the relationships between serum HER2 ECD, TIMP-1 and clinical outcomes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>One hundred and eighty-five female breast cancer patients, who received curative mastectomy without neo-adjuvant chemotherapy at Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, were recruited with informed consent for this study. Pre-operative serum levels of HER2 ECD and TIMP-1 were measured using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty-three cases (12.4%) were classified HER2 ECD positive. HER2 ECD positivity was significantly associated with age, lymph node involvement, histological grade, estrogen receptor status, progesterone receptor status, tissue HER2/neu overexpression, and disease-free survival (DFS). In an age, stage, ER and HER2/neu status matched subgroup (N = 41), the serum level of TIMP-1 was significantly associated with HER2 ECD positivity and DFS.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A high serum TIMP-1 was significantly associated with HER2 ECD positivity and a poorer DFS among Taiwanese primary breast cancer patients with HER2 overexpression.</p
Comparison of Calcium Balancing Strategies During Hypothermic Acclimation of Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) and Goldfish (Carassius auratus)
The body temperatures of teleost species fluctuate following changes in the aquatic environment. As such, decreased water temperature lowers the rates of biochemical reactions and affects many physiological processes, including active transport-dependent ion absorption. Previous studies have focused on the impacts of low temperature on the plasma ion concentrations or membrane transporters in fishes. However, very few in vivo or organism-level studies have been performed to more thoroughly elucidate the process of acclimation to low temperatures. In the present study, we compared the strategies for cold acclimation between stenothermic tilapia and eurythermic goldfish. Whole-body calcium content was more prominently diminished in tilapia than in goldfish after long-term cold exposure. This difference can be attributed to alterations in the transportation parameters for Ca2+ influx, i.e., maximum velocity (Vmax) and binding affinity (1/Km). There was also a significant difference in the regulation of Ca2+ efflux between the two fishes. Transcript levels for Ca2+ related transporters, including the Na+/Ca2+ exchanger and epithelial Ca2+ channel, were similarly regulated in both fishes. However, upregulation of plasma membrane Ca2+ATPase expression was more pronounced in goldfish than in tilapia. In addition, enhanced Na+/K+-ATPase abundance, which provides the major driving force for ion absorption, was only detected in tilapia, while upregulated Na+/K+-ATPase activity was only detected in goldfish. Based on the results of the present study, we have found that goldfish and tilapia differentially regulate gill epithelial plasma membrane Ca2+-ATPase (PMCA) expression and Na+/K+-ATPase activity in response to cold environments. These regulatory differences are potentially linked to more effective regulation of Ca2+ influx kinetics and better maintenance of whole body calcium content in goldfish than in tilapia
Induction chemotherapy with dose-modified docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil in Asian patients with borderline resectable or unresectable head and neck cancer
BackgroundSignificant ethnic differences in susceptibility to the effects of chemotherapy exist. Here, we retrospectively analyzed the safety and efficacy of induction chemotherapy (ICT) with dose-modified docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil (TPF) in Asian patients with borderline resectable or unresectable head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).MethodsBased on the incidence of adverse events that occurred during daily practice, TPF90 (90% of the original TPF dosage; docetaxel 67.5 mg/m2 on Day 1, cisplatin 67.5 mg/m2 on Day 1, and 5-fluorouracil 675 mg/m2 on Days 1–5) was used for HNSCC patients who were scheduled to receive ICT TPF.ResultsBetween March 2011 and May 2014, 52 consecutive patients with borderline resectable or unresectable HNSCC were treated with ICT TPF90 followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Forty-four patients (84.6%) received at least three cycles of ICT TPF90. The most commonly observed Grade 3–4 adverse events included neutropenia (35%), anemia (25%), stomatitis (35%), diarrhea (16%), and infections (13.5%). In an intention-to-treat analysis, the complete and partial response rates after ICT TPF90 were 13.5% and 59.6%, respectively. The complete and partial response rates following radiotherapy and salvage surgery were 42.3% and 25.0%, respectively. The estimated 3-year overall survival and progression-free survival rates were 41% [95% confidence interval (CI): 25–56%] and 23% (95% CI: 10–39%), respectively. The observed median overall survival and progression-free survival were 21.0 months (95% CI: 13.3–28.7 months) and 16.0 months (95% CI: 10.7–21.3 months), respectively.ConclusionTPF90 is a suitable option for Asian patients with borderline resectable or unresectable HNSCC who are scheduled for ICT
Benchmarking of eight recurrent neural network variants for breath phase and adventitious sound detection on a self-developed open-access lung sound database-HF_Lung_V1
A reliable, remote, and continuous real-time respiratory sound monitor with
automated respiratory sound analysis ability is urgently required in many
clinical scenarios-such as in monitoring disease progression of coronavirus
disease 2019-to replace conventional auscultation with a handheld stethoscope.
However, a robust computerized respiratory sound analysis algorithm has not yet
been validated in practical applications. In this study, we developed a lung
sound database (HF_Lung_V1) comprising 9,765 audio files of lung sounds
(duration of 15 s each), 34,095 inhalation labels, 18,349 exhalation labels,
13,883 continuous adventitious sound (CAS) labels (comprising 8,457 wheeze
labels, 686 stridor labels, and 4,740 rhonchi labels), and 15,606 discontinuous
adventitious sound labels (all crackles). We conducted benchmark tests for long
short-term memory (LSTM), gated recurrent unit (GRU), bidirectional LSTM
(BiLSTM), bidirectional GRU (BiGRU), convolutional neural network (CNN)-LSTM,
CNN-GRU, CNN-BiLSTM, and CNN-BiGRU models for breath phase detection and
adventitious sound detection. We also conducted a performance comparison
between the LSTM-based and GRU-based models, between unidirectional and
bidirectional models, and between models with and without a CNN. The results
revealed that these models exhibited adequate performance in lung sound
analysis. The GRU-based models outperformed, in terms of F1 scores and areas
under the receiver operating characteristic curves, the LSTM-based models in
most of the defined tasks. Furthermore, all bidirectional models outperformed
their unidirectional counterparts. Finally, the addition of a CNN improved the
accuracy of lung sound analysis, especially in the CAS detection tasks.Comment: 48 pages, 8 figures. To be submitte
Non-invasive and transdermal measurement of blood uric acid level in human by electroporation and reverse iontophoresis
The aim of this study was to find out the optimum combination of electroporation (EP) and reverse iontophoresis (RI) on noninvasive and transdermal determination of blood uric acid level in humans. EP is the use of high-voltage electric pulse to create nano-channels on the stratum corneum, temporarily and reversibly. RI is the use of small current to facilitate both charged and uncharged molecule transportation across the skin. It is believed that the combination of these two techniques has additional benefits on the molecules’ extraction across the human skin. In vitro studies using porcine skin and diffusion cell have indicated that the optimum mode for transdermal uric acid extraction is the combination of RI with symmetrical biphasic direct current (current density = 0.3 mA/cm2; phase duration = 180 s) and EP with 10 pulses per second (voltage = 100 V/cm2; pulse width = 1 ms). This optimum mode was applied to six human subjects. Uric acid was successfully extracted through the subjects’ skin into the collection solution. A good correlation (r2 = 0.88) between the subject’s blood uric acid level and uric acid concentrations in collection solutions was observed. The results suggest that it may be possible to noninvasively and transdermally determine blood uric acid levels
Elevated expression of TDP-43 in the forebrain of mice is sufficient to cause neurological and pathological phenotypes mimicking FTLD-U
TDP-43 is a multifunctional DNA/RNA-binding factor that has been implicated in the regulation of neuronal plasticity. TDP-43 has also been identified as the major constituent of the neuronal cytoplasmic inclusions (NCIs) that are characteristic of a range of neurodegenerative diseases, including the frontotemporal lobar degeneration with ubiquitin+ inclusions (FTLD-U) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We have generated a FTLD-U mouse model (CaMKII-TDP-43 Tg) in which TDP-43 is transgenically overexpressed in the forebrain resulting in phenotypic characteristics mimicking those of FTLD-U. In particular, the transgenic (Tg) mice exhibit impaired learning/memory, progressive motor dysfunction, and hippocampal atrophy. The cognitive and motor impairments are accompanied by reduced levels of the neuronal regulators phospho–extracellular signal-regulated kinase and phosphorylated cAMP response element-binding protein and increased levels of gliosis in the brains of the Tg mice. Moreover, cells with TDP-43+, ubiquitin+ NCIs and TDP-43–deleted nuclei appear in the Tg mouse brains in an age-dependent manner. Our data provide direct evidence that increased levels of TDP-43 protein in the forebrain is sufficient to lead to the formation of TDP-43+, ubiquitin+ NCIs and neurodegeneration. This FTLD-U mouse model should be valuable for the mechanistic analysis of the role of TDP-43 in the pathogenesis of FTLD-U and for the design of effective therapeutic approaches of the disease
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