1,203 research outputs found
Self-supervised OCT Image Denoising with Slice-to-Slice Registration and Reconstruction
Strong speckle noise is inherent to optical coherence tomography (OCT)
imaging and represents a significant obstacle for accurate quantitative
analysis of retinal structures which is key for advances in clinical diagnosis
and monitoring of disease. Learning-based self-supervised methods for
structure-preserving noise reduction have demonstrated superior performance
over traditional methods but face unique challenges in OCT imaging. The high
correlation of voxels generated by coherent A-scan beams undermines the
efficacy of self-supervised learning methods as it violates the assumption of
independent pixel noise. We conduct experiments demonstrating limitations of
existing models due to this independence assumption. We then introduce a new
end-to-end self-supervised learning framework specifically tailored for OCT
image denoising, integrating slice-by-slice training and registration modules
into one network. An extensive ablation study is conducted for the proposed
approach. Comparison to previously published self-supervised denoising models
demonstrates improved performance of the proposed framework, potentially
serving as a preprocessing step towards superior segmentation performance and
quantitative analysis.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, submitted to International Symposium on
Biomedical Imaging 202
Emerging Roles of Cullin-RING Ubiquitin Ligases in Cardiac Development
Heart development is a spatiotemporally regulated process that extends from the embryonic phase to postnatal stages. Disruption of this highly orchestrated process can lead to congenital heart disease or predispose the heart to cardiomyopathy or heart failure. Consequently, gaining an in-depth understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing cardiac development holds considerable promise for the development of innovative therapies for various cardiac ailments. While significant progress in uncovering novel transcriptional and epigenetic regulators of heart development has been made, the exploration of post-translational mechanisms that influence this process has lagged. Culling-RING E3 ubiquitin ligases (CRLs), the largest family of ubiquitin ligases, control the ubiquitination and degradation of ~20% of intracellular proteins. Emerging evidence has uncovered the critical roles of CRLs in the regulation of a wide range of cellular, physiological, and pathological processes. In this review, we summarize current findings on the versatile regulation of cardiac morphogenesis and maturation by CRLs and present future perspectives to advance our comprehensive understanding of how CRLs govern cardiac developmental processes
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Computational investigation of porosity effects on fracture behavior of thermal barrier coatings
The influence of microstructural pore defects on fracture behaviour of Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBC) is analysed using finite element analysis involving cohesive elements. A concurrent multiscale approach is utilised whereby the microstructural features of the TBC are explicitly resolved within a unit cell embedded in a larger domain. Within the unit cell, a random distribution of pores is modelled along with three different layers in a TBC system, namely, the Top Coat (TC), the Bond Coat (BC) and the Thermally Grown Oxide (TGO). The TC/TGO and the TGO/BC interfaces are assumed to be sinusoidal of specified amplitude and frequency extracted from experimental observations reported in the literature. To simulate fracture in the TBC, cohesive elements are inserted throughout the inter-element boundaries in order to enable arbitrary crack initiation and propagation. A bilinear traction-separation relation with specified fracture properties for each layer is used to model the constitutive behaviour of the cohesive elements. Parametric studies are conducted for various pore geometrical features, porosity, fracture properties of Top Coat layer and Thermally Grown Oxide layer thicknesses. The results are quantified in terms of crack initiation and evolution. It is found that the presence of pores has a beneficial effect on the fracture behavior up to a certain value of porosity after which the pores become detrimental to the overall performance. Insights derived from the numerical results can help in understanding the failure behavior of practical TBC systems and further aid in engineering the TBC microstructure for a desired fracture behavior
Analysing the impact of rescheduling time in hybrid manufacturing control
Hybrid manufacturing control architectures merge the benefits of hierarchical and heterarchical approaches. Disturbances can be handled at upper or lower decision levels, depending on the type of disturbance, its impact and the time the control system has to react. This paper focuses particularly on a disturbance handling mechanism at upper decision levels using a rescheduling manufacturing method. Such rescheduling is more complex that the offline scheduling since the control system must take into account the current system status, obtain a satisfactory performance under the new conditions, and also come up with a new schedule in a restricted amount of time. Then, this paper proposes a simple and generic rescheduling method which, based on the satisfying principle, analyses the trade-off between the rescheduling time and the performance achieved after a perturbation. The proposed approach is validated on a simulation model of a realistic assembly cell and results demonstrate that adaptation of the rescheduling time might be beneficial in terms of overall performance and reactivity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Paternal Body Mass Index (BMI) Is Associated with Offspring Intrauterine Growth in a Gender Dependent Manner
Background: Environmental alternations leading to fetal programming of cardiovascular diseases in later life have been attributed to maternal factors. However, animal studies showed that paternal obesity may program cardio-metabolic diseases in the offspring. In the current study we tested the hypothesis that paternal BMI may be associated with fetal growth. Methods and Results: We analyzed the relationship between paternal body mass index (BMI) and birth weight, ultrasound parameters describing the newbornâs body shape as well as parameters describing the newborns endocrine system such as cortisol, aldosterone, renin activity and fetal glycated serum protein in a birth cohort of 899 father/mother/child triplets. Since fetal programming is an offspring sex specific process, male and female offspring were analyzed separately. Multivariable regression analyses considering maternal BMI, paternal and maternal age, hypertension during pregnancy, maternal total glycated serum protein, parity and either gestational age (for birth weight) or time of ultrasound investigation (for ultrasound parameters) as confounding showed that paternal BMI is associated with growth of the male but not female offspring. Paternal BMI correlated with birth parameters of male offspring only: birth weight; biparietal diameter, head circumference; abdominal diameter, abdominal circumference; and pectoral diameter. Cortisol was likewise significantly correlated with paternal BMI in male newborns only
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Primate retinal cones express phosphorylated tau associated with neuronal degeneration yet survive in old age
Photoreceptor cells have high energy demands and suffer significantly with age. In aged rodents both rods and cones are lost, but in primates there is no evidence for aged cone loss, although their function declines. Here we ask if aged primate cones suffer from reduced function because of declining metabolic ability. Tau is a microtubule associated protein critical for mitochondrial function in neurons. Its phosphorylation is a feature of neuronal degeneration undermining respiration and mitochondrial dynamics. We show that total tau is widely distributed in the primate outer retina with little age-related change, being present in both rods and cones and their processes. However, all cones specifically accumulate phosphorylated tau, which was not seen in rods. The presence of this protein will likely undermine cone cell function. However, tau phosphorylation inhibits apoptosis. These data may explain why aged primate cones have reduced function but appear to be resistant to cell death. Consequently, therapies designed to remove phosphorylated tau may carry the risk of inducing cone photoreceptor cell death and further undermine ageing visual function
Mechanical and microstructural characterization of MCrAlY coatings produced by laser cladding: The influence of the Ni, Co and Al content
[EN] Laser metal deposition (LMD) and laser cladding (LC) are alternative methods to thermal spraying processes to produce dense, high-quality coatings. In this work, two MCrAlY coatings (M=Ni+Co) have been prepared onto stainless steel substrate using a coaxial LC technique under two different Ni/Co and Al proportions. The mechanical properties were then evaluated with microhardness, nanoindentation, and three-point bending tests.
The microstructure and composition of coatings were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis and Field Emission Electron Microscopy (FESEM) coupled to an Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) detector. The study revealed that the Âż/Ă phases formed in the MCrAlY coating microstructure result in a lower elastic modulus than the austenitic stainless steel substrate, while an inverse behavior for hardness was observed due the presence of the aluminum-rich Ă-phase. Under flexural loads, the failure of coatings showed plasticity and anisotropy characteristics depending on the two laser tracks orientations evaluated.The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain through research project MAT2011-28492-C03, and the support of the Generalitat Valenciana through ACOMP/2013/114Pereira, JC.; Zambrano, JC.; RayĂłn, E.; Yañez, A.; AmigĂł, V. (2018). Mechanical and microstructural characterization of MCrAlY coatings produced by laser cladding: The influence of the Ni, Co and Al content. Surface and Coatings Technology. 338:22-31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2018.01.073S223133
Suppression of back-to-back hadron pairs at forward rapidity in d+Au Collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200 GeV
Back-to-back hadron pair yields in d+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt(s_NN)=200
GeV were measured with the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider. Rapidity separated hadron pairs were detected with the trigger hadron
at pseudorapidity |eta|<0.35 and the associated hadron at forward rapidity
(deuteron direction, 3.0<eta<3.8). Pairs were also detected with both hadrons
measured at forward rapidity; in this case the yield of back-to-back hadron
pairs in d+Au collisions with small impact parameters is observed to be
suppressed by a factor of 10 relative to p+p collisions. The kinematics of
these pairs is expected to probe partons in the Au nucleus with low fraction x
of the nucleon momenta, where the gluon densities rise sharply. The observed
suppression as a function of nuclear thickness, p_T, and eta points to cold
nuclear matter effects arising at high parton densities.Comment: 381 authors, 6 pages, 4 figures. Published in Phys. Rev. Lett.
(http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.172301). v3 has minor
changes to match published version
(http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/info/pp1/128/PhysRevLett.107.172301)
Plain text data tables for points plotted in figures are publicly available
at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/info/data/ppg128_data.htm
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