Tissue Segmentation of Thick-Slice Fetal Brain MR Scans with Guidance from High-Quality Isotropic Volumes

Accurate tissue segmentation of thick-slice fetal brain magnetic resonance (MR) scans is crucial for both reconstruction of isotropic brain MR volumes and the quantification of fetal brain development. However, this task is challenging due to the use of thick-slice scans in clinically-acquired fetal brain data. To address this issue, we propose to leverage high-quality isotropic fetal brain MR volumes (and also their corresponding annotations) as guidance for segmentation of thick-slice scans. Due to existence of significant domain gap between high-quality isotropic volume (i.e., source data) and thick-slice scans (i.e., target data), we employ a domain adaptation technique to achieve the associated knowledge transfer (from high-quality volumes to thick-slice scans). Specifically, we first register the available high-quality isotropic fetal brain MR volumes across different gestational weeks to construct longitudinally-complete source data. To capture domain-invariant information, we then perform Fourier decomposition to extract image content and style codes. Finally, we propose a novel Cycle-Consistent Domain Adaptation Network (C2DA-Net) to efficiently transfer the knowledge learned from high-quality isotropic volumes for accurate tissue segmentation of thick-slice scans. Our C2DA-Net can fully utilize a small set of annotated isotropic volumes to guide tissue segmentation on unannotated thick-slice scans. Extensive experiments on a large-scale dataset of 372 clinically acquired thick-slice MR scans demonstrate that our C2DA-Net achieves much better performance than cutting-edge methods quantitatively and qualitatively.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables, Fetal MRI, Brain tissue segmentation, Unsupervised domain adaptation, Cycle-consistenc

Identification by PCR signature-tagged mutagenesis of attenuated Salmonella Pullorum mutants and corresponding genes in a chicken embryo model

A key feature of the fowl-specific pathogen Salmonella Pullorum is its vertical transmission to progeny via the egg. In this study, PCR signature-tagged mutagenesis identified nine genes of a strain of S. Pullorum that contributed to survival in the chicken embryo during incubation. The genes were involved in invasion, cell division, metabolism and bacterial defence. The competition index in vivo and in vitro together with a virulence evaluation for chicken embryos of all nine mutant strains confirmed their attenuation

A Survey on Dataset Distillation: Approaches, Applications and Future Directions

Dataset distillation is attracting more attention in machine learning as training sets continue to grow and the cost of training state-of-the-art models becomes increasingly high. By synthesizing datasets with high information density, dataset distillation offers a range of potential applications, including support for continual learning, neural architecture search, and privacy protection. Despite recent advances, we lack a holistic understanding of the approaches and applications. Our survey aims to bridge this gap by first proposing a taxonomy of dataset distillation, characterizing existing approaches, and then systematically reviewing the data modalities, and related applications. In addition, we summarize the challenges and discuss future directions for this field of research

Genotypic and Phenotypic Characterization of Clinical Escherichia coli Sequence Type 405 Carrying IncN2 Plasmid Harboring blaNDM-1

We report a blaNDM-carrying ST405 Escherichia coli recovered from the abdominal fluid of a patient in Shandong, China. This strain belonged to the high-risk phylogenetic group D and carried the virulence genes, papG II, papG III, papC, and iroN. In addition to blaNDM-1, this isolate carried the quinolone resistance gene acc(6′)-Ib and extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) genes blaCTX-M-15 and blaCTX-M-14. blaNDM-1 was located on a 41 Kb IncN2 self-transmissible plasmid. The IncN2 plasmid named as pJN24NDM1 was fully sequenced and analyzed. Genome comparative analysis showed that IncN2 plasmids harboring carbapenem-resistance genes possessed conserved backbones and variable accessory regions. Phylogenetic analysis of 87 IncN plasmids based on orthologous genes indicated that 9 IncN2 plasmids fell into one phylogenetic clade, while 4 IncN3 plasmids were in two phylogenetic clades of the 74 IncN1 plasmids. The presence of IncN2 plasmids harboring blaNDM in the high-risk clone ST405 E. coli raises serious concerns for its potential of dissemination

Giant thermal transport tuning at a metal/ferroelectric interface

Interfacial thermal transport plays a prominent role in the thermal management of nanoscale objects and is of fundamental importance for basic research and nanodevices. At metal/insulator interfaces, a configuration commonly found in electronic devices, heat transport strongly depends upon the effective energy transfer from thermalized electrons in the metal to the phonons in the insulator. However, the mechanism of interfacial electron–phonon coupling and thermal transport at metal/insulator interfaces is not well understood. Here, the observation of a substantial enhancement of the interfacial thermal resistance and the important role of surface charges at the metal/ferroelectric interface in an Al/BiFeO3 membrane are reported. By applying uniaxial strain, the interfacial thermal resistance can be varied substantially (up to an order of magnitude), which is attributed to the renormalized interfacial electron–phonon coupling caused by the charge redistribution at the interface due to the polarization rotation. These results imply that surface charges at a metal/insulator interface can substantially enhance the interfacial electron–phonon-mediated thermal coupling, providing a new route to optimize the thermal transport performance in next-generation nanodevices, power electronics, and thermal logic devices.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The clinical significance, immune infiltration, and tumor mutational burden of angiogenesis-associated lncRNAs in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma

BackgroundPoor prognosis of kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) is often related to angiogenesis. The lncRNAs that regulate angiogenesis could also affect the prognosis of KIRC. It is meaningful for us to use lncRNAs related to angiogenesis to construct a generic, individualized prognostic signature for patients with KIRC.MethodsWe identified eight angiogenesis-associated genes (AAGs) by differential expression analysis and univariate Cox regression from The Cancer Genome Atlas dataset, including 537 KIRC samples and 72 normal samples. In total, 23 prognostic lncRNAs were screened out after Pearson correlation analysis and univariate Cox regression analysis. Then, we performed least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression and multivariate Cox regression to establish a four-AAG-related lncRNA prognostic signature.ResultsThe risk score was calculated for each KIRC patients by using a four-AAG-related lncRNA prognostic signature. We divided the KIRC patients into high- and low-risk groups by the median of the risk score. It was confirmed that the AAG-related lncRNA prognostic signature has good prognostic value for KIRC patients by time-dependent receiver operating characteristic and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. We identified 3,399 differentially expressed genes between the high- and low-risk groups and performed their functional enrichment analyses. The AAG-related lncRNA prognostic signature was an independent prognostic predictor for KIRC patients and was used to perform a combined nomogram. We reevaluated them in terms of survival, clinic characteristics, tumor-infiltrating immune cells and tumor mutation burden.ConclusionOur research indicates that the AAG-related lncRNA prognostic signature is a promising and potential independent prognostic indicator for KIRC patients. Then, it could offer new insights into the prognosis assessment and potential treatment strategies of KIRC patients

Differential expression of heat shock protein 90, 70, 60 in chicken muscles postmortem and its relationship with meat quality

Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of heat shock protein (HSP) 90, 70, and 60 in chicken muscles and their possible relationship with quality traits of meat. Methods The breast muscles from one hundred broiler chickens were analyzed for drip loss and other quality parameters, and the levels of heat shock protein (HSP) 90, 70, and 60 were determined by immunoblots. Results Based on the data, chicken breast muscles were segregated into low (drip loss≤5%), intermediate (5%0.05). Conclusion Results of this study suggests that higher levels of HSP90 and HSP60 may be advantageous for maintenance of cell function and reduction of water loss, and they could act as potential indicator for better water holding capacity of meat

Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis for Evaluating Free Amino Acids in Crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) from Different Co-culture Modes

To investigate the difference in the comprehensive quality of free amino acids (FAA) in crayfish meat from different co-culture modes, the FAA composition of crayfish tail meat from three representative co-culture modes in Xinghua city of Jiangsu province was determined, and the contribution of FAA to the taste of crayfish meat was evaluated by computing the taste active value (TAV). Comprehensive evaluation of FAA in crayfish meat was performed using principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis. The results showed that 17 amino acids were found in crayfish meat from each co-culture mode, and the total amount of FAA was 21.80–27.11 mg/g. Arginine (Arg) was the most abundant FAA in all samples, accounting for 55.64%–67.76% of the total FAA, which was much more abundant than the other amino acids. Moreover, Arg contributed the most to the taste of crayfish meat. The TAV of the sweet amino acid alanine (Ala) and the bitter amino acid histidine (His) in crayfish were greater than 1 for all co-culture modes, indicating that both amino acids contributed to the taste of crayfish meat. The TAV of glutamic acid (Glu) as the amino acid with the strongest umami taste was greater than 1 only in crayfish meat from rice-crayfish mode with one-rice and two-crayfish in a field (RC2). Three principal components were extracted for the 17 amino acids, which cumulatively explained 89.937% of the total variance and could reflect the comprehensive information of amino acids in crayfish meat. The results of PCA showed that RC2 ranked first, and crayfish-crab mode (CC1) ranked last. The hierarchical cluster analysis divided crayfish meat from different co-culture modes into three categories. Similar results were obtained by PCA. This study demonstrated that the comprehensive quality of FAA in crayfish from rice-crayfish co-culture mode was better than that in crayfish from the other co-culture modes