Embryonic Growth and Yolk Depletion during Incubation in the Chinese Skink, Plestiodon chinensis

We collected 24 gravid female Chinese skinks (Plestiodon chinensis) to study embryonic growth and yolk depletion during incubation. Females laid eggs between late May and mid-June. Eggs were incubated at 24 (± 0.3) °C. One egg from each clutch was dissected at 5-d intervals starting at laying. Embryonic stages at laying varied from Dufaure and Hubert’s (1961) Stage 30−35, with a mean stage of 32.6. Incubation lengths at 24 °C varied from 35.1 to 48.3 d, with a mean of 41.5 d. Based on the derived functions describing instantaneous changes in embryo dry mass and yolk dry mass, we identified three phases of embryonic growth or yolk depletion in P. chinensis. Phase 1, from Day 0 (at laying) to Day 15 (~36% of the way through incubation), was one of minimal transfer of material from yolk to embryo. Phase 2, from Day 15 to Day 32−33 (~77%−80% of the way through incubation), was characterized by increasingly rapid embryonic growth or yolk depletion. Phase 3, from Day 32−33 to hatching, was characterized by reduced embryonic growth or yolk depletion. The length of the last embryonic stage (Stage 40 = completely differentiated embryos) accounted for about 28% of incubation length, and the dry mass of the smallest embryos of Stage 40 accounted for only ~48% of the hatchling dry mass. Our study adds evidence to the idea that oviposition is not timed to coincide with the onset of rapid embryonic growth in oviparous reptiles, and is first to demonstrate that ~50% embryonic growth occurs in the last quarter of incubation in P. chinensis

Molecular Beam Epitaxy Growth of Superconducting LiFeAs Film on SrTiO3(001) Substrate

The stoichiometric "111" iron-based superconductor, LiFeAs, has attacted great research interest in recent years. For the first time, we have successfully grown LiFeAs thin film by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on SrTiO3(001) substrate, and studied the interfacial growth behavior by reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope (LT-STM). The effects of substrate temperature and Li/Fe flux ratio were investigated. Uniform LiFeAs film as thin as 3 quintuple-layer (QL) is formed. Superconducting gap appears in LiFeAs films thicker than 4 QL at 4.7 K. When the film is thicker than 13 QL, the superconducting gap determined by the distance between coherence peaks is about 7 meV, close to the value of bulk material. The ex situ transport measurement of thick LiFeAs film shows a sharp superconducting transition around 16 K. The upper critical field, Hc2(0)=13.0 T, is estimated from the temperature dependent magnetoresistance. The precise thickness and quality control of LiFeAs film paves the road of growing similar ultrathin iron arsenide films.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Voila-A: Aligning Vision-Language Models with User's Gaze Attention

In recent years, the integration of vision and language understanding has led to significant advancements in artificial intelligence, particularly through Vision-Language Models (VLMs). However, existing VLMs face challenges in handling real-world applications with complex scenes and multiple objects, as well as aligning their focus with the diverse attention patterns of human users. In this paper, we introduce gaze information, feasibly collected by AR or VR devices, as a proxy for human attention to guide VLMs and propose a novel approach, Voila-A, for gaze alignment to enhance the interpretability and effectiveness of these models in real-world applications. First, we collect hundreds of minutes of gaze data to demonstrate that we can mimic human gaze modalities using localized narratives. We then design an automatic data annotation pipeline utilizing GPT-4 to generate the VOILA-COCO dataset. Additionally, we innovate the Voila Perceiver modules to integrate gaze information into VLMs while preserving their pretrained knowledge. We evaluate Voila-A using a hold-out validation set and a newly collected VOILA-GAZE Testset, which features real-life scenarios captured with a gaze-tracking device. Our experimental results demonstrate that Voila-A significantly outperforms several baseline models. By aligning model attention with human gaze patterns, Voila-A paves the way for more intuitive, user-centric VLMs and fosters engaging human-AI interaction across a wide range of applications

Adjustable Robust Transformer for High Myopia Screening in Optical Coherence Tomography

Myopia is a manifestation of visual impairment caused by an excessively elongated eyeball. Image data is critical material for studying high myopia and pathological myopia. Measurements of spherical equivalent and axial length are the gold standards for identifying high myopia, but the available image data for matching them is scarce. In addition, the criteria for defining high myopia vary from study to study, and therefore the inclusion of samples in automated screening efforts requires an appropriate assessment of interpretability. In this work, we propose a model called adjustable robust transformer (ARTran) for high myopia screening of optical coherence tomography (OCT) data. Based on vision transformer, we propose anisotropic patch embedding (APE) to capture more discriminative features of high myopia. To make the model effective under variable screening conditions, we propose an adjustable class embedding (ACE) to replace the fixed class token, which changes the output to adapt to different conditions. Considering the confusion of the data at high myopia and low myopia threshold, we introduce the label noise learning strategy and propose a shifted subspace transition matrix (SST) to enhance the robustness of the model. Besides, combining the two structures proposed above, the model can provide evidence for uncertainty evaluation. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of the proposed method. Code is available at: https://github.com/maxiao0234/ARTran.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, MICCAI 2023 - Accepted Papers; International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention, 2023: 504-51

Concentration- and time-dependent response of human gingival fibroblasts to fibroblast growth factor 2 immobilized on titanium dental implants

Qianli Ma1*, Wei Wang1*, Paul K Chu2, Shenglin Mei1,2, Kun Ji3, Lei Jin4, Yumei Zhang11Department of Prosthetic Dentistry, School of Stomatology, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, People's Republic of China; 2Department of Physics and Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China; 3Department of Pediatric Dentistry, School of Stomatology, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, People's Republic of China; 4Stomatology Department, Jinling Hospital, School of Medicine, Southern Medical University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workBackground: Titanium (Ti) implants are widely used clinically, but peri-implantitis remains one of the most common and serious complications. Healthy integration between gingival tissue and the implant surface is critical to long-term success in dental implant therapy. The objective of this study was to investigate how different concentrations of immobilized fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) on the titania nanotubular surface influence the response of human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs).Methods: Pure Ti metal was anodized at 20 V to form a vertically organized titanium dioxide nanotube array on which three concentrations of FGF2 (250 ng/mL, 500 ng/mL, or 1000 ng/mL) were immobilized by repeated lyophilization. Surface topography was observed and FGF2 elution was detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The bioactivity changes of dissolvable immobilized FGF2 were measured by methyl-thiazolyl-tetrazolium assay. Behavior of HGFs was evaluated using adhesion and methyl-thiazolyl-tetrazolium bromide assays.Results: The FGF2 remained for several days on the modified surface on which HGFs were cultured. Over 90% of the dissolvable immobilized FGF2 had been eluted by Day 9, whereas the FGF2 activity was found to diminish gradually from Day 1 to Day 9. The titania nanotubular surface with an optimal preparing concentration (500 ng/mL) of FGF2 immobilization exhibited improved HGF functions such as cellular attachment, proliferation, and extracellular matrix-related gene expression. Moreover, significant bidirectional as well as concentration- and time-dependent bioactivity was observed.Conclusion: Synergism of the FGF2-impregnated titanium dioxide nanotubular surface revealed good gingival-implant integration, indicating that these materials might have promising applications in dentistry and other biomedical devices.Keywords: dental implants, titanium dioxide nanotube, fibroblast growth factor 2, extracellular matrix, real-time polymerase chain reactio