Read Pointer Meters in complex environments based on a Human-like Alignment and Recognition Algorithm

Recently, developing an automatic reading system for analog measuring instruments has gained increased attention, as it enables the collection of numerous state of equipment. Nonetheless, two major obstacles still obstruct its deployment to real-world applications. The first issue is that they rarely take the entire pipeline's speed into account. The second is that they are incapable of dealing with some low-quality images (i.e., meter breakage, blur, and uneven scale). In this paper, we propose a human-like alignment and recognition algorithm to overcome these problems. More specifically, a Spatial Transformed Module(STM) is proposed to obtain the front view of images in a self-autonomous way based on an improved Spatial Transformer Networks(STN). Meanwhile, a Value Acquisition Module(VAM) is proposed to infer accurate meter values by an end-to-end trained framework. In contrast to previous research, our model aligns and recognizes meters totally implemented by learnable processing, which mimics human's behaviours and thus achieves higher performances. Extensive results verify the good robustness of the proposed model in terms of the accuracy and efficiency

A novel drainage strategy using chest tube plus pleural catheter in uniportal upper lobectomy: A randomized controlled trial.

Background In this study we explored whether one pleural catheter plus single chest tube drainage could achieve a noninferior drainage effect when compared with the traditional two chest tubes in uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) for an upper pulmonary lobectomy. Methods Patients that underwent an upper pulmonary lobectomy from January to November 2020 were enrolled in this single-center, randomized, open-label, noninferiority trial. Prior to closure, patients were randomized to an intervention group who received an improved drainage strategy involving one pleural catheter with one chest tube (24 Fr), while traditional double chest tube drainage was applied for the control group. Results A total of 390 patients entered the study, although 190 were excluded for changing nonuniportal surgical approaches or opting for nonlobectomy resections. Finally, 200 patients were randomized (100 in the intervention group and 100 in the control group). The baseline demographic and clinical characteristics were comparable between the groups. The incidence of pneumothorax in the intervention and control groups was similar on postoperative Day 1 (noninferiority, 10% vs. 13%, p = 0.658). In addition, there were no significant differences in secondary outcomes such as incidence of pneumothorax by Day 30, postoperative chest tube/pleural catheter removal time, amount of drainage on Day 1, total amount of drainage after operation, or postoperative hospitalization. A significantly lower pain score was observed in the intervention group (3.33 ± 0.68 vs. 3.68 ± 0.94, p = 0.003). Conclusions The new strategy is noninferior to double chest tube drainage after an upper pulmonary lobectomy offers superior pain control, and is recommended for an upper lobectomy by uniportal VATS

Changes of Acylating Stimulating Protein (ASP) and Blood Lipid in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction

Objective: To study the changes of acylating stimulating protein (ASP) and blood lipid in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Method: There were three groups,25 cases of acute myocardial infarction patients (acute myocardial infarction group), 32 cases of coronary heart disease patients without myocardial infarction (CHD group) and 30 cases of healthy people (control group). They respectively detected the ASP, low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and analyzed the correlation between them. Results: (1) ASP, TG, TC and LDL-C of acute myocardial infarction group and coronary heart disease group were significantly higher than those of control group, while HDL-C was lower than control group, the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). (2) TG in coronary heart disease group was higher than that in acute myocardial infarction group, while ASP, TC, LDL-C and HDL-C had no significant difference. Conclusion: ASP and blood lipid are risk factors of CHD, ASP can be used as risk index of CHD. There was no significant difference in plasma ASP between patients with acute myocardial infarction and patients with coronary heart disease without myocardial infarction. ASP cannot be used as a surrogate marker of acute myocardial infarction

Design of variable screw pitch rib snapping roller and residue cutter for corn harvesters

The blocking between two snapping rollers will seriously constrict the harvesting efficiency for corn harvester. A variable screw pitch rib snapping roller was developed to solve this problem. The comparative experiment between fixed screw pitch rib snapping rollers and variable screw pitch rib snapping rollers illustrated that variable screw pitch ribs can avoid corn-stalk blocking effectively, and it can improve working efficiency by 56.7%. Conservation tillage with standing corn residue was testified that it had a strong control of soil wind erosion. In order to implement this mode of conservation tillage at a production scale, a cutter was developed in this study. Subsequently, two experiments were conducted, one was to test the cutting ratio (defined as the totally cut off stalk population divided by total stalk population), and the other one was to test standing-residue height

Autonomous concrete crack semantic segmentation using deep fully convolutional encoder-decoder network in concrete structures inspection

Structure health inspection is the way to ensure that structures stay in optimum condition. Traditional inspection work has many disadvantages in dealing with the large workload despite using remote image-capturing devices. This research focuses on image-based concrete crack pattern recognition utilizing a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) and an encoder–decoder module for semantic segmentation and classification tasks, thereby lightening the inspectors’ workload. To achieve this, a series of contrast experiments have been implemented. The results show that the proposed deep-learning network has competitive semantic segmentation accuracy (91.62%) and over-performs compared with other crack detection studies. This proposed advanced DCNN is split into multiple modules, including atrous convolution (AS), atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP), a modified encoder–decoder module, and depthwise separable convolution (DSC). The advancement is that those modules are well-selected for this task and modified based on their characteristics and functions, exploiting their superiority to achieve robust and accurate detection globally. This application improved the overall performance of detection and can be implemented in industrial practices

Neurovirulence of avian influenza virus is dependent on the interaction of viral NP protein with host factor FMRP in the murine brain

Avian influenza viruses (AIVs) are zoonotic viruses that exhibit a range infectivity and severity in the human host. Severe human cases of AIVs infection are often accompanied by neurological symptoms, however, the factors involved in the infection of the central nervous system (CNS) are not well known. In this study, we discovered that avian-like sialic acid (SA)-α2, 3 Gal receptor is highly presented in mammalian (human and mouse) brains. In the generation of a mouse-adapted neurotropic H9N2 AIV (SD16-MA virus) in BALB/c mice, we identified key adaptive mutations in its hemagglutinin (HA) and polymerase basic protein 2 (PB2) genes that conferred viral replication ability in mice brain. The SD16-MA virus showed binding affinity for avian-like SA-α2, 3 Gal receptor, enhanced viral RNP polymerase activity, increased viral protein production and transport that culminated in elevated progeny virus production and severe pathogenicity. We further established that host Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein (FMRP), a highly expressed protein in the brain that physically associated with viral nucleocapsid protein (NP) to facilitate RNP assembly and export, was an essential host factor for the neuronal replication of neurotropic AIVs (H9N2, H5N1 and H10N7 viruses). Our study identified a mechanistic process for AIVs to acquire neurovirulence in mice

Enhanced pathogenicity and neurotropism of mouse-adapted H10N7 influenza virus are mediated by novel PB2 and NA mutations

The H10 subtype of avian influenza viruses (AIVs) circulates globally in wild birds and poultry, and this subtype has been shown to be increasingly prevalent in China. Among the various H10 viruses, H10N7 AIVs have caused repeated mammal and human infections. To investigate their genetic adaptation in mammals, we generated a mouse-adapted avian H10N7 variant (A/mallard/Beijing/27/2011-MA; BJ27-MA) which exhibited increased virulence in mice compared to wild-type virus and acquired neurotropism. Sequencing showed the absence of the widely recognized mammalian adaptation markers of E627K and D701N in PB2 in the mouse-adapted strain; instead, five amino acid mutations were identified: E158G and M631L in PB2; G218E in haemagglutinin (H3 numbering); and K110E and S453I in neuraminidase (NA). The neurovirulence of the BJ27-MA virus necessitated the combined presence of the PB2 and NA mutations. Mutations M631L and E158G of PB2 and K110E of NA were required to mediate increased virus replication and severity of infection in mice and mammalian cells. PB2-M631L was functionally the most dominant mutation in that it strongly upregulated viral polymerase activity and played a critical role in the enhancement of virus replication and disease severity in mice. K110E mutation in NA, on the other hand, significantly promoted NA enzymatic activity. These results indicate that the novel mutations in PB2 and NA genes are critical for the adaptation of H10N7 AIV in mice, and they could serve as molecular signatures of virus transmission to mammalian hosts, including humans