2,145 research outputs found
Lesion detection and Grading of Diabetic Retinopathy via Two-stages Deep Convolutional Neural Networks
We propose an automatic diabetic retinopathy (DR) analysis algorithm based on
two-stages deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN). Compared to existing
DCNN-based DR detection methods, the proposed algorithm have the following
advantages: (1) Our method can point out the location and type of lesions in
the fundus images, as well as giving the severity grades of DR. Moreover, since
retina lesions and DR severity appear with different scales in fundus images,
the integration of both local and global networks learn more complete and
specific features for DR analysis. (2) By introducing imbalanced weighting map,
more attentions will be given to lesion patches for DR grading, which
significantly improve the performance of the proposed algorithm. In this study,
we label 12,206 lesion patches and re-annotate the DR grades of 23,595 fundus
images from Kaggle competition dataset. Under the guidance of clinical
ophthalmologists, the experimental results show that our local lesion detection
net achieve comparable performance with trained human observers, and the
proposed imbalanced weighted scheme also be proved to significantly improve the
capability of our DCNN-based DR grading algorithm
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Stanniocalcin-1 in the female reproductive system and pregnancy.
BACKGROUND: Stanniocalcin-1 (STC-1) is a widely expressed glycoprotein hormone involved in a diverse spectrum of physiological and pathophysiological processes including angiogenesis, mineral homeostasis, cell proliferation, inflammation and apoptosis. Over the last 20 years, numerous studies have reported STC-1 expression within female reproductive tissues including the uterus, ovaries and placenta and implicated STC-1 in processes such as ovarian follicular development, blastocyst implantation, vascular remodelling in early pregnancy and placental development. Notably, dysregulation of STC-1 within reproductive tissues has been linked to the onset of severe reproductive disorders including endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome, poor trophoblast invasion and placental perfusion in early pregnancy. Furthermore, significant changes in tissue expression and in maternal systemic concentration take place throughout pregnancy and further substantiate the vital role of this protein in reproductive health and disease. OBJECTIVE AND RATIONALE: Our aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing literature, to summarise the expression profile and roles of STC-1 within the female reproductive system and its associated pathologies. We highlight the gaps in the current knowledge and suggest potential avenues for future research. SEARCH METHODS: Relevant studies were identified through searching the PubMed database using the following search terms: 'stanniocalcin-1', 'placenta', 'ovary', 'endometrium', 'pregnancy', 'reproduction', 'early gestation'. Only English language papers published between 1995 and 2020 were included. OUTCOMES: This review provides compelling evidence of the vital function that STC-1 plays within the female reproductive system. The literature presented summarise the wide expression profile of STC-1 within female reproductive organs, as well as highlighting the putative roles of STC-1 in various functions in the reproductive system. Moreover, the observed link between altered STC-1 expression and the onset of various reproductive pathologies is presented, including those in pregnancy whose aetiology occurs in the first trimester. This summary emphasises the requirement for further studies on the mechanisms underlying the regulation of STC-1 expression and function. WIDER IMPLICATIONS: STC-1 is a pleiotropic hormone involved in the regulation of a number of important biological functions needed to maintain female reproductive health. There is also growing evidence that dysregulation of STC-1 is implicated in common reproductive and obstetric disorders. Greater understanding of the physiology and biochemistry of STC-1 within the field may therefore identify possible targets for therapeutic intervention and/or diagnosis
Photonic crystal cavities from hexagonal boron nitride
© 2018 The Author(s). Development of scalable quantum photonic technologies requires on-chip integration of photonic components. Recently, hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) has emerged as a promising platform, following reports of hyperbolic phonon-polaritons and optically stable, ultra-bright quantum emitters. However, exploitation of hBN in scalable, on-chip nanophotonic circuits and cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) experiments requires robust techniques for the fabrication of high-quality optical resonators. In this letter, we design and engineer suspended photonic crystal cavities from hBN and demonstrate quality (Q) factors in excess of 2000. Subsequently, we show deterministic, iterative tuning of individual cavities by direct-write EBIE without significant degradation of the Q-factor. The demonstration of tunable cavities made from hBN is an unprecedented advance in nanophotonics based on van der Waals materials. Our results and hBN processing methods open up promising avenues for solid-state systems with applications in integrated quantum photonics, polaritonics and cavity QED experiments
The role of mentorship in protege performance
The role of mentorship on protege performance is a matter of importance to
academic, business, and governmental organizations. While the benefits of
mentorship for proteges, mentors and their organizations are apparent, the
extent to which proteges mimic their mentors' career choices and acquire their
mentorship skills is unclear. Here, we investigate one aspect of mentor
emulation by studying mentorship fecundity---the number of proteges a mentor
trains---with data from the Mathematics Genealogy Project, which tracks the
mentorship record of thousands of mathematicians over several centuries. We
demonstrate that fecundity among academic mathematicians is correlated with
other measures of academic success. We also find that the average fecundity of
mentors remains stable over 60 years of recorded mentorship. We further uncover
three significant correlations in mentorship fecundity. First, mentors with
small mentorship fecundity train proteges that go on to have a 37% larger than
expected mentorship fecundity. Second, in the first third of their career,
mentors with large fecundity train proteges that go on to have a 29% larger
than expected fecundity. Finally, in the last third of their career, mentors
with large fecundity train proteges that go on to have a 31% smaller than
expected fecundity.Comment: 23 pages double-spaced, 4 figure
Influence of chromophores on quarternary structure of phycobiliproteins from the cyanobacterium, Mastigocladus laminosus
Chromophores of C-phycocyanin and phycoerythrο-cyanin have been chemically modified by reduction to
rubins , bleaching , photoisomerization , or perturbation
with bulky substituents. Pigments containing modified
chromophores, or hybrids containing modified and unmodified chromophores in individual protomers have been prepared. All modifications inhibit the association of the
(aß)-protomers of these pigments to higher aggregates. The
results demonstrate a pronounced effect of the state of
the chromophores on biliprotein quaternary structure. It
may be important in phycobi1isome assembly , and also in
the dual function of biliproteins as (i) antenna pigments
for photosynthesis and (ii) reaction centers for photomor-phogenesis
Synthesized grain size distribution in the interstellar medium
We examine a synthetic way of constructing the grain size distribution in the
interstellar medium (ISM). First we formulate a synthetic grain size
distribution composed of three grain size distributions processed with the
following mechanisms that govern the grain size distribution in the Milky Way:
(i) grain growth by accretion and coagulation in dense clouds, (ii) supernova
shock destruction by sputtering in diffuse ISM, and (iii) shattering driven by
turbulence in diffuse ISM. Then, we examine if the observational grain size
distribution in the Milky Way (called MRN) is successfully synthesized or not.
We find that the three components actually synthesize the MRN grain size
distribution in the sense that the deficiency of small grains by (i) and (ii)
is compensated by the production of small grains by (iii). The fraction of each
{contribution} to the total grain processing of (i), (ii), and (iii) (i.e., the
relative importance of the three {contributions} to all grain processing
mechanisms) is 30-50%, 20-40%, and 10-40%, respectively. We also show that the
Milky Way extinction curve is reproduced with the synthetic grain size
distributions.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Earth, Planets, and
Spac
Fully spray-coated triple-cation perovskite solar cells
We use ultrasonic spray-coating to sequentially deposit thin films of tin oxide, a triple-cation perovskite and spiro-OMeTAD, allowing us fabricate perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with a champion reverse scan power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.4% on small-area substrates. We show that the use of spray-deposition permits us to rapidly (>80 mm s−1) coat 25 mm × 75 mm substrates that were divided into a series of devices each with an active area of 15.4 mm2, yielding an average PCE of 10.3% and a peak PCE of 16.3%. By connecting seven 15.4 mm2 devices in parallel on a single substrate, we create a device having an effective active area of 1.08 cm2 and a PCE of 12.7%. This work demonstrates the possibility for spray-coating to fabricate high efficiency and low-cost perovskite solar cells at speed
Beyond the Jaynes-Cummings model: circuit QED in the ultrastrong coupling regime
In cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), light-matter interaction is probed
at its most fundamental level, where individual atoms are coupled to single
photons stored in three-dimensional cavities. This unique possibility to
experimentally explore the foundations of quantum physics has greatly evolved
with the advent of circuit QED, where on-chip superconducting qubits and
oscillators play the roles of two-level atoms and cavities, respectively. In
the strong coupling limit, atom and cavity can exchange a photon frequently
before coherence is lost. This important regime has been reached both in cavity
and circuit QED, but the design flexibility and engineering potential of the
latter allowed for increasing the ratio between the atom-cavity coupling rate
and the cavity transition frequency above the percent level. While these
experiments are well described by the renowned Jaynes-Cummings model, novel
physics is expected in the ultrastrong coupling limit. Here, we report on the
first experimental realization of a superconducting circuit QED system in the
ultrastrong coupling limit and present direct evidence for the breakdown of the
Jaynes-Cummings model.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
A Theory of Cheap Control in Embodied Systems
We present a framework for designing cheap control architectures for embodied
agents. Our derivation is guided by the classical problem of universal
approximation, whereby we explore the possibility of exploiting the agent's
embodiment for a new and more efficient universal approximation of behaviors
generated by sensorimotor control. This embodied universal approximation is
compared with the classical non-embodied universal approximation. To exemplify
our approach, we present a detailed quantitative case study for policy models
defined in terms of conditional restricted Boltzmann machines. In contrast to
non-embodied universal approximation, which requires an exponential number of
parameters, in the embodied setting we are able to generate all possible
behaviors with a drastically smaller model, thus obtaining cheap universal
approximation. We test and corroborate the theory experimentally with a
six-legged walking machine. The experiments show that the sufficient controller
complexity predicted by our theory is tight, which means that the theory has
direct practical implications. Keywords: cheap design, embodiment, sensorimotor
loop, universal approximation, conditional restricted Boltzmann machineComment: 27 pages, 10 figure
Warped Riemannian metrics for location-scale models
The present paper shows that warped Riemannian metrics, a class of Riemannian
metrics which play a prominent role in Riemannian geometry, are also of
fundamental importance in information geometry. Precisely, the paper features a
new theorem, which states that the Rao-Fisher information metric of any
location-scale model, defined on a Riemannian manifold, is a warped Riemannian
metric, whenever this model is invariant under the action of some Lie group.
This theorem is a valuable tool in finding the expression of the Rao-Fisher
information metric of location-scale models defined on high-dimensional
Riemannian manifolds. Indeed, a warped Riemannian metric is fully determined by
only two functions of a single variable, irrespective of the dimension of the
underlying Riemannian manifold. Starting from this theorem, several original
contributions are made. The expression of the Rao-Fisher information metric of
the Riemannian Gaussian model is provided, for the first time in the
literature. A generalised definition of the Mahalanobis distance is introduced,
which is applicable to any location-scale model defined on a Riemannian
manifold. The solution of the geodesic equation is obtained, for any Rao-Fisher
information metric defined in terms of warped Riemannian metrics. Finally,
using a mixture of analytical and numerical computations, it is shown that the
parameter space of the von Mises-Fisher model of -dimensional directional
data, when equipped with its Rao-Fisher information metric, becomes a Hadamard
manifold, a simply-connected complete Riemannian manifold of negative sectional
curvature, for . Hopefully, in upcoming work, this will be
proved for any value of .Comment: first version, before submissio
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