Structure Similarity Preservation Learning for Asymmetric Image Retrieval

Asymmetric image retrieval is a task that seeks to balance retrieval accuracy and efficiency by leveraging lightweight and large models for the query and gallery sides, respectively. The key to asymmetric image retrieval is realizing feature compatibility between different models. Despite the great progress, most existing approaches either rely on classifiers inherited from gallery models or simply impose constraints at the instance level, ignoring the structure of embedding space. In this work, we propose a simple yet effective structure similarity preserving method to achieve feature compatibility between query and gallery models. Specifically, we first train a product quantizer offline with the image features embedded by the gallery model. The centroid vectors in the quantizer serve as anchor points in the embedding space of the gallery model to characterize its structure. During the training of the query model, anchor points are shared by the query and gallery models. The relationships between image features and centroid vectors are considered as structure similarities and constrained to be consistent. Moreover, our approach makes no assumption about the existence of any labeled training data and thus can be extended to an unlimited amount of data. Comprehensive experiments on large-scale landmark retrieval demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Our code is released at: https://github.com/MCC-WH/SSP

A diagnostic challenge for schistosomiasis japonica in China: consequences on praziquantel-based morbidity control

Worldwide schistosomiasis continues to be a serious public health problem. Over the past five decades, China has made remarkable progress in reducing Schistosoma japonicum infections in humans to a relatively low level. Endemic regions are currently circumscribed in certain core areas where re-infection and repeated chemotherapy are frequent. At present, selective chemotherapy with praziquantel is one of the main strategies in China's National Schistosomiasis Control Program, and thus diagnosis of infected individuals is a key step for such control. In this paper we review the current status of our knowledge about diagnostic tools for schistosomiasis japonica. A simple, affordable, sensitive, and specific assay for field diagnosis of schistosomiasis japonica is not yet available, and this poses great barriers towards full control of schistosomiasis. Hence, a search for a diagnostic approach, which delivers these characteristics, is essential and should be given high priority

Cordycepin reverses cisplatin resistance in human bladder cancer cells via the PTEN/PI3K/AKt pathway

Purpose: To study the influence of cordycepin (Cor) on cisplatin insensitivity in bladder carcinoma, and its underlying mechanism of action.Methods: The effects of cisplatin and Cor treatments on the viability of T24-sensitive and T24/DDPinsensitive bladder carcinoma cells were investigated by using 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2-H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) method to assess selectivity index. Flow cytometry was employed to evaluate the apoptosis of T24/DDP-resistant bladder cancer cells treated with cisplatin and Cor. The concentrations of PTEN, p-AKt and Akt in T24/DDP-resistant bladder cancer cells treated with cisplatin and Cor were determined by western blot assay.Results: Compared with T24-sensitive cells, the sensitivity of T24/DDP-resistant bladder cancer cells to cisplatin was significantly decreased, along with significant increase in half-inhibitory concentration (IC50) value, resulting in 10.56-fold increase in resistance (p < 0.05). The median effective concentration (EC50) value of Cor for DDP reversal was 1.03 ± 0.15 μM, and it had a high selectivity index for normal cells (> 48.5). The results from flow cytometry showed that Cor significantly enhanced the apoptosisinducing capacity of DDP in T24/DDP-resistant cells (p < 0.05), while Western blot data indicate that PTEN protein expression increased and phosphorylated Akt protein expression decreased in T24/DDPresistantcells after Cor treatment when compared with control group (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Cordycepin significantly improves the sensitivity of T24/ DDP-resistant bladder cancer cells to cisplatin via a mechanism related to the activation of PTEN/AKt signaling pathway, thus indicating that it is a potential candidate reversing DDP-resistance in bladder cancer. Keywords: Bladder cancer, Cordycepin, Cisplatin resistance, PTEN/Akt signaling pathwa

Asymmetric Feature Fusion for Image Retrieval

In asymmetric retrieval systems, models with different capacities are deployed on platforms with different computational and storage resources. Despite the great progress, existing approaches still suffer from a dilemma between retrieval efficiency and asymmetric accuracy due to the limited capacity of the lightweight query model. In this work, we propose an Asymmetric Feature Fusion (AFF) paradigm, which advances existing asymmetric retrieval systems by considering the complementarity among different features just at the gallery side. Specifically, it first embeds each gallery image into various features, e.g., local features and global features. Then, a dynamic mixer is introduced to aggregate these features into compact embedding for efficient search. On the query side, only a single lightweight model is deployed for feature extraction. The query model and dynamic mixer are jointly trained by sharing a momentum-updated classifier. Notably, the proposed paradigm boosts the accuracy of asymmetric retrieval without introducing any extra overhead to the query side. Exhaustive experiments on various landmark retrieval datasets demonstrate the superiority of our paradigm

Pharmacological isolation of postsynaptic currents mediated by NR2A- and NR2B-containing NMDA receptors in the anterior cingulate cortex

NMDA receptors (NMDARs) are involved in excitatory synaptic transmission and plasticity associated with a variety of brain functions, from memory formation to chronic pain. Subunit-selective antagonists for NMDARs provide powerful tools to dissect NMDAR functions in neuronal activities. Recently developed antagonist for NR2A-containing receptors, NVP-AAM007, triggered debates on its selectivity and involvement of the NMDAR subunits in bi-directional synaptic plasticity. Here, we re-examined the pharmacological properties of NMDARs in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) using NVP-AAM007 as well as ifenprodil, a selective antagonist for NR2B-containing NMDARs. By alternating sequence of drug application and examining different concentrations of NVP-AAM007, we found that the presence of NVP-AAM007 did not significantly affect the effect of ifenprodil on NMDAR-mediated EPSCs. These results suggest that NVP-AAM007 shows great preference for NR2A subunit and could be used as a selective antagonist for NR2A-containing NMDARs in the ACC