Universal digital filtering for denoising volumetric retinal OCT and OCT angiography in 3D shearlet domain

Retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) and OCT angiography (OCTA) suffer from the degeneration of image quality due to speckle noise and bulk-motion noise, respectively. Because the cross-sectional retina has distinct features in OCT and OCTA B-scans, existing digital filters that can denoise OCT efficiently are unable to handle the bulk-motion noise in OCTA. In this Letter, we propose a universal digital filtering approach that is capable of minimizing both types of noise. Considering the retinal capillaries in OCTA are hard to differentiate in B-scans while having distinct curvilinear structures in 3D volumes, we decompose the volumetric OCT and OCTA data with 3D shearlets thus efficiently separate the retinal tissue and vessels from the noise in this transform domain. Compared with wavelets and curvelets, the shearlets provide better representation of the layer edges in OCT and the vasculature in OCTA. Qualitative and quantitative results show the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art OCT and OCTA denoising methods. Besides, the superiority of 3D denoising is demonstrated by comparing the 3D shearlet filtering with its 2D counterpart.Comment: This version has been accepted for publication in Opt. Let

Temporal Sentence Grounding in Streaming Videos

This paper aims to tackle a novel task - Temporal Sentence Grounding in Streaming Videos (TSGSV). The goal of TSGSV is to evaluate the relevance between a video stream and a given sentence query. Unlike regular videos, streaming videos are acquired continuously from a particular source, and are always desired to be processed on-the-fly in many applications such as surveillance and live-stream analysis. Thus, TSGSV is challenging since it requires the model to infer without future frames and process long historical frames effectively, which is untouched in the early methods. To specifically address the above challenges, we propose two novel methods: (1) a TwinNet structure that enables the model to learn about upcoming events; and (2) a language-guided feature compressor that eliminates redundant visual frames and reinforces the frames that are relevant to the query. We conduct extensive experiments using ActivityNet Captions, TACoS, and MAD datasets. The results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed methods. A systematic ablation study also confirms their effectiveness.Comment: Accepted by ACM MM 202

Variation and stability of rhizosphere bacterial communities of Cucumis crops in association with root-knot nematodes infestation

IntroductionRoot-knot nematodes (RKN) disease is a devastating disease in Cucumis crops production. Existing studies have shown that resistant and susceptible crops are enriched with different rhizosphere microorganisms, and microorganisms enriched in resistant crops can antagonize pathogenic bacteria. However, the characteristics of rhizosphere microbial communities of Cucumis crops after RKN infestation remain largely unknown.MethodsIn this study, we compared the changes in rhizosphere bacterial communities between highly RKN-resistant Cucumis metuliferus (cm3) and highly RKN-susceptible Cucumis sativus (cuc) after RKN infection through a pot experiment. ResultsThe results showed that the strongest response of rhizosphere bacterial communities of Cucumis crops to RKN infestation occurred during early growth, as evidenced by changes in species diversity and community composition. However, the more stable structure of the rhizosphere bacterial community in cm3 was reflected in less changes in species diversity and community composition after RKN infestation, forming a more complex and positively co-occurrence network than cuc. Moreover, we observed that both cm3 and cuc recruited bacteria after RKN infestation, but the bacteria enriched in cm3 were more abundant including beneficial bacteria Acidobacteria, Nocardioidaceae and Sphingomonadales. In addition, the cuc was enriched with beneficial bacteria Actinobacteria, Bacilli and Cyanobacteria. We also found that more antagonistic bacteria than cuc were screened in cm3 after RKN infestation and most of them were Pseudomonas (Proteobacteria, Pseudomonadaceae), and Proteobacteria were also enriched in cm3 after RKN infestation. We hypothesized that the cooperation between Pseudomonas and the beneficial bacteria in cm3 could inhibit the infestation of RKN.DiscussionThus, our results provide valuable insights into the role of rhizosphere bacterial communities on RKN diseases of Cucumis crops, and further studies are needed to clarify the bacterial communities that suppress RKN in Cucumis crops rhizosphere

Canagliflozin Alleviates Atherosclerosis Progression through Inflammation, Oxidative Stress, and Autophagy in Western Diet-fed ApoE −/− Mice

Purpose: This study was aimed at investigating the effect of canagliflozin (Cana) on atherosclerosis and further exploring its potential mechanism. Methods: ApoE −/− mice were fed a Western diet (WD) and randomly divided into a WD group and WD+Cana group. After 15 weeks of canagliflozin treatment, serum levels of fasting insulin and inflammatory cytokines were determined with ELISA kits. HE, Oil Red O, and Masson staining were used to estimate the extent of atherosclerosis. Immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, ROS staining, and RT-PCR were used to further investigate Cana’s potential mechanism. Results: Histological analysis indicated that Cana restrained atherosclerotic plaque development. Furthermore, Cana decreased the percentage of F4/80 positive cells, and the areal density of ROS and relative fluorescence intensity of P62, but enhanced the relative fluorescence intensity of LC3 in the aortic root. Analysis of factors associated with the inflammatory response mediated by AP-1, oxidative stress mediated through the ROS/Nrf2 pathway, and autophagy in the aorta indicated elevated mRNA levels of F4/80, MCP-1, VCAM-1, AP-1, ROS, NOX4, P62, NLRP3, and IL-1β, but diminished mRNA levels of Nrf2, GST, eNOS, and LC3, in the WD+Cana group. Conclusion: Canagliflozin may attenuate atherosclerosis by decreasing the inflammatory response mediated by AP-1, alleviating oxidative stress through the ROS/Nrf2 pathway, and enhancing autophagy in WD-fed ApoE −/− mice