THE EARLY INTERVENTION TENDENCY OF CHINESE CHILDREN WITH COCHLEAR IMPLANTS

From the change of adult unilateral cochlear implantation into young children even under the age of six implant cochlear, sequential bilateral cochlear implantation, which benefit by early hearing screening and technological development of cochlear implants. It is a worldwide trend that simultaneous bilateral cochlear implantation for hearing impaired children under the age of three. Cochlear implants bring changes of education opportunities and choices for children with hearing impairment. Family-centered postoperative early intervention is important, at the same time, hearing impaired children group characteristics tend to be diversified. A growing number of children with cochlear implants study in regular school, consequently, the number of deaf student is decreasing in deaf school. Regular school faces the challenge of lacking of professional teaching staff.

Multimodal Co-learning: A Domain Adaptation Method for Building Extraction from Optical Remote Sensing Imagery

In this paper, we aim to improve the transfer learning ability of 2D convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for building extraction from optical imagery and digital surface models (DSMs) using a 2D-3D co-learning framework. Unlabeled target domain data are incorporated as unlabeled training data pairs to optimize the training procedure. Our framework adaptively transfers unsupervised mutual information between the 2D and 3D modality (i.e., DSM-derived point clouds) during the training phase via a soft connection, utilizing a predefined loss function. Experimental results from a spaceborne-to-airborne cross-domain case demonstrate that the framework we present can quantitatively and qualitatively improve the testing results for building extraction from single-modality optical images

A Co-learning Method to Utilize Optical Images and Photogrammetric Point Clouds for Building Extraction

Although deep learning techniques have brought unprecedented accuracy to automatic building extraction, several main issues still constitute an obstacle to effective and practical applications. The industry is eager for higher accuracy and more flexible data usage. In this paper, we present a co-learning framework applicable to building extraction from optical images and photogrammetric point clouds, which can take the advantage of 2D/3D multimodality data. Instead of direct information fusion, our co-learning framework adaptively exploits knowledge from another modality during the training phase with a soft connection, via a predefined loss function. Compared to conventional data fusion, this method is more flexible, as it is not mandatory to provide multimodality data in the test phase. We propose two types of co-learning: a standard version and an enhanced version, depending on whether unlabeled training data are employed. Experimental results from two data sets show that the methods we present can enhance the performance of both image and point cloud networks in few-shot tasks, as well as image networks when applying fully labeled training data sets

OR-011 Effect of Aerobic and Resistance Exercise on TGF-β1/Smad3 Signal Pathway and Collagen in Skeletal Muscle of Aging Mice

Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of TGF-β 1/Smad3  signaling pathway and its downstream factor CTGF in collagen deposition and its molecular mechanism. And then it explored further the effect of exercise on the TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway and collagen deposition in skeletal muscle. Therefore, it is expected to provide alternative exercise intervention approaches for skeletal muscle diseases, which are caused by age-related changes of collagen, and to provide new research perspectives for skeletal muscle satellite cell activation and skeletal muscle regeneration. Methods 21 male BALB/c mice were normally raised from 4 weeks to 36 weeks under standard conditions. The mice was divided randomly into three groups, including: group C, the quiet control group; Group A, the aerobics training group, received nine weeks of treadmill training without loading; And the group R, the resistance training group, received nine weeks of climbing training with loading. The body weight and limb grip of the mice were measured on regularly during the experiment. After 24 hours of the last intervention experiment, the mice were weighed and then executed by dislocating the cervical spine. The quadriceps were taken. Real-time PCR technology was used to detect the mRNA levels of TGF-β1, TβR I, Smad 3, CTGF, Pax7, COL1 and COL3. Western blotting technique was used to detect the protein levels of TGF-β1, Smad3, P-Smad3 , CTGF, COL1, COL3, Pax7 and MyoD . The deposition of collagen in the quadriceps muscle tissue of mice was detected by Sirius red staining. And the localization and expressions of COL1 and Pax7 in the quadriceps of mice were demonstrated by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence technology respectively. Results (1)       Compared with group C, the weight of mice in group A was significantly increased (P<0.05), and the ratio of the wet weight of the quadriceps and the body weight of the mice increased significantly (P<0.05), while there was no significant change on the limbs relative grip strength. Compared with group C, the body weight of mice in group R showed a certain degree of increase but no significant difference, the ratio between the wet weight of the quadriceps and the body weight of the mice was significantly increased (P<0.01), and the limbs relative grip strength was significantly increased (P<0.05). (2)     Compared with group C, there was no significant difference in the mRNA and protein expression of COL1 and COL3 in the quadriceps of mice in group A, and there was no significant change in collagen volume fraction. Compared with group C, the mRNA and protein expression of COL1 and COL3 of the quadriceps in group R were significantly decreased (P<0.05), and collagen volume fraction significantly reduced (P<0.05), and collagen deposition decreased. (3)     Compared with group C, the mRNA level of CTGF and the protein level of TGF-β1 and CTGF in quadriceps tissues of mice in group A were significantly decreased (P<0.05). While the protein levels of Smad3 and p-Smad3 and the ratio of Smad3 and p-Smad3 had no significant change. Group R is compared with group C, the mRNA level of TGF-β1, TβR I and CTGF in quadriceps were significantly decreased (P<0.05); the mRNA levels of Smad3 and the protein levels of TGF-β1 and p-Smad3 were significantly decreased (P<0.01); and the protein levels of Smad3 and CTGF and the ratio of Smad3 and p-Smad3 were also significantly decreased (P<0.05). (4)     Compared with group C, the mRNA and protein expression of Pax7, and the protein expression of MyoD in the quadriceps of group A showed no significant difference. But group R is compared to group C, the expression of Pax7 mRNA in the quadriceps was significantly increased (P<0.01), and the expression of Pax7 protein was also significantly increased (P<0.05), while the protein expression of MyoD did not change significantly. Compared with group A, the mRNA levels of Pax7 in the quadriceps of the R group was significantly increased (P<0.05), but the protein expression of Pax7 and MyoD showed no significant change. Conclusions (1)     Through 9 week resistance or aerobic exercise training, skeletal muscle mass index in mice increased significantly; and the resistance exercise training can improve the limbs relative grip strength to prevent sacorpenia. (2)     9 week resistance exercise training can inhibit TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway, affect the gene expression of COL1 and COL3, inhibit collagen synthesis, and improve collagen deposition. (3)     9 weeks of resistance exercise training can effectively promote Pax7 gene expression, activate skeletal muscle satellite cells and promote its proliferation. (4)     The effect of 9 week of resistance exercise training on the improvement of skeletal muscle mass, strength, collagen deposition and the activation of satellite cells was significantly better than that of aerobic exercise

Exploring Cross-city Semantic Segmentation of ALS Point Clouds

Deep learning models achieve excellent semantic segmentation results for airborne laser scanning (ALS) point clouds, if sufficient training data are provided. Increasing amounts of annotated data are becoming publicly available thanks to contributors from all over the world. However, models trained on a specific dataset typically exhibit poor performance on other datasets. I.e., there are significant domain shifts, as data captured in different environments or by distinct sensors have different distributions. In this work, we study this domain shift and potential strategies to mitigate it, using two popular ALS datasets: the ISPRS Vaihingen benchmark from Germany and the LASDU benchmark from China. We compare different training strategies for cross-city ALS point cloud semantic segmentation. In our experiments, we analyse three factors that may lead to domain shift and affect the learning: point cloud density, LiDAR intensity, and the role of data augmentation. Moreover, we evaluate a well-known standard method of domain adaptation, deep CORAL (Sun and Saenko, 2016). In our experiments, adapting the point cloud density and appropriate data augmentation both help to reduce the domain gap and improve segmentation accuracy. On the contrary, intensity features can bring an improvement within a dataset, but deteriorate the generalisation across datasets. Deep CORAL does not further improve the accuracy over the simple adaptation of density and data augmentation, although it can mitigate the impact of improperly chosen point density, intensity features, and further dataset biases like lack of diversity

CGRP Regulates the Age-Related Switch Between Osteoblast and Adipocyte Differentiation

Osteoporosis is a chronic age-related disease. During aging, bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) display increased adipogenic, along with decreased osteogenic, differentiation capacity. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) on the osteogenic and adipogenic differentiation potential of BMSC-derived osteoblasts. Here, we found that the level of CGRP was markedly lower in bone marrow supernatant from aged mice compared with that in young mice. In vitro experiments indicated that CGRP promoted the osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs while inhibiting their adipogenic differentiation. Compared with vehicle-treated controls, aged mice treated with CGRP showed a substantial promotion of bone formation and a reduction in fat accumulation in the bone marrow. Similarly, we found that CGRP could significantly enhance bone formation in ovariectomized (OVX) mice in vivo. Together, our results suggested that CGRP may be a key regulator of the age-related switch between osteogenesis and adipogenesis in BMSCs and may represent a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of age-related bone loss

A 2D/3D multimodal data simulation approach with applications on urban semantic segmentation, building extraction and change detection

Advances in remote sensing image processing techniques have further increased the demand for annotated datasets. However, preparing annotated multi-temporal 2D/3D multimodal data is especially challenging, both for the increased costs of the annotation step and the lack of multimodal acquisitions available on the same area. We introduce the Simulated Multimodal Aerial Remote Sensing (SMARS) dataset, a synthetic dataset aimed at the tasks of urban semantic segmentation, change detection, and building extraction, along with a description of the pipeline to generate them and the parameters required to set our rendering. Samples in the form of orthorectified photos, digital surface models and ground truth for all the tasks are provided. Unlike existing datasets, orthorectified images and digital surface models are derived from synthetic images using photogrammetry, yielding more realistic simulations of the data. The increased size of SMARS, compared to available datasets of this kind, facilitates both traditional and deep learning algorithms. Reported experiments from state-of-the-art algorithms on SMARS scenes yield satisfactory results, in line with our expectations. Both benefits of the SMARS datasets and constraints imposed by its use are discussed. Specifically, building detection on the SMARS-real Potsdam cross-domain test demonstrates the quality and the advantages of proposed synthetic data generation workflow. SMARS is published as an ISPRS benchmark dataset and can be downloaded from https://www2.isprs.org/commissions/comm1/wg8/benchmark_smar

Oxygen enrichment protects against intestinal damage and gut microbiota disturbance in rats exposed to acute high-altitude hypoxia

Acute high-altitude hypoxia can lead to intestinal damage and changes in gut microbiota. Sustained and reliable oxygen enrichment can resist hypoxic damage at high altitude to a certain extent. However, it remains unclear whether oxygen enrichment can protect against gut damage and changes in intestinal flora caused by acute altitude hypoxia. For this study, eighteen male Sprague–Dawley rats were divided into three groups, control (NN), hypobaric hypoxic (HH), and oxygen-enriched (HO). The NN group was raised under normobaric normoxia, whereas the HH group was placed in a hypobaric hypoxic chamber simulating 7,000 m for 3 days. The HO group was exposed to oxygen-enriched air in the same hypobaric hypoxic chamber as the HH group for 12 h daily. Our findings indicate that an acute HH environment caused a fracture of the crypt structure, loss of epithelial cells, and reduction in goblet cells. Additionally, the structure and diversity of bacteria decreased in richness and evenness. The species composition at Phylum and Genus level was characterized by a higher ratio of Firmicutes and Bacteroides and an increased abundance of Lactobacillus with the abundance of Prevotellaceae_NK3B31_group decreased in the HH group. Interestingly, after oxygen enrichment intervention, the intestinal injury was significantly restrained. This was confirmed by an increase in the crypt depth, intact epithelial cell morphology, increased relative density of goblet cells, and higher evenness and richness of the gut microbiota, Bacteroidetes and Prevotellaceae as the main microbiota in the HO group. Finally, functional analysis showed significant differences between the different groups with respect to different metabolic pathways, including Amino acid metabolism, energy metabolism, and metabolism. In conclusion, this study verifies, for the first time, the positive effects of oxygen enrichment on gut structure and microbiota in animals experiencing acute hypobaric hypoxia