Ray3D: ray-based 3D human pose estimation for monocular absolute 3D localization

In this paper, we propose a novel monocular ray-based 3D (Ray3D) absolute human pose estimation with calibrated camera. Accurate and generalizable absolute 3D human pose estimation from monocular 2D pose input is an ill-posed problem. To address this challenge, we convert the input from pixel space to 3D normalized rays. This conversion makes our approach robust to camera intrinsic parameter changes. To deal with the in-the-wild camera extrinsic parameter variations, Ray3D explicitly takes the camera extrinsic parameters as an input and jointly models the distribution between the 3D pose rays and camera extrinsic parameters. This novel network design is the key to the outstanding generalizability of Ray3D approach. To have a comprehensive understanding of how the camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameter variations affect the accuracy of absolute 3D key-point localization, we conduct in-depth systematic experiments on three single person 3D benchmarks as well as one synthetic benchmark. These experiments demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art models. Our code and the synthetic dataset are available at https://github.com/YxZhxn/Ray3D .Comment: Accepted by CVPR 202

Intercenter reliability and validity of the rhesus macaque GeneChip

BACKGROUND: The non-human primate (NHP) research community has been intensely interested in obtaining whole-genome expression arrays for their work. Recently, novel approaches were used to generate the DNA sequence information for a rhesus GeneChip. To test the reliability of the rhesus GeneChip across different centers, RNA was isolated from five sources: cerebral cortex, pancreas, thymus, testis, and an immortalized fibroblast cell line. Aliquots of this RNA were sent to each of three centers: Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Oregon National Primate Research Center and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Each center labeled the samples and hybridized them with two rhesus macaque GeneChips. In addition, rhesus samples were hybridzed with human GeneChips to compare with samples hybridized with the rhesus GeneChip. RESULTS: The results indicate that center effects were minimal and the rhesus GeneChip appears highly reliable. To test the validity of the rhesus GeneChip, five of the most differentially expressed genes among tissues identified in the reliability experiments were chosen for analysis with Quantitative PCR. For all 5 genes, the qPCR and GeneChip results were in agreement with regard to differential expression between tissues. Significantly more probesets were called present when rhesus samples were hybridized with the rhesus GeneChip than when these same samples were hybridized with a human GeneChip. CONCLUSION: The rhesus GeneChip is both a reliable and a valid tool for examining gene expression and represents a significant improvement over the use of the human GeneChip for rhesus macaque gene expression studies

Maize ZmHSP90 plays a role in acclimation to salt stress

Background Maize is sensitive to salt stress, especially during the germination and seedling stages. Methods We conducted germination experiments on 60 maize materials under salt stress, and screened out the most salt-tolerant and salt-sensitive varieties based on germination indicators. Afterwards, transcriptome analysis was performed to screen for key regulators in the plumule and flag leaf at the germination and seedling stages, respectively. Following that, transgenic tobacco was developed to expose the roles and mechanisms of the candidate genes, enabling a deeper investigation of their functions. Results Out of the 60 inbred lines of maize, “975-12” exhibits the highest level of salt tolerance, while “GEMS64” displays the lowest. The application of salt stress resulted in a significant increase in the levels of antioxidant enzymes in both “975-12” and “GEMS64”. ABA signal transduction and jasmonic acid pathways were the pathways that mainly affected by salt stress. In addition, a significant finding has been made indicating that when exposed to high levels of salt stress, the expression of ZmHSP90 in ‘975-12’ increased while in ‘GEMS64’ decreased. Furthermore, in tobacco plants overexpressing ZmHSP90, there was an increase in antioxidant enzyme activity associated with salt tolerance. ZmHSP90 enhanced the expression levels of NtSOS1, NtHKT1, and NtNHX1 as compared to those in the salt treatment, causing the maintenance of Na+ and K+ homeostasis, suggesting that high expression of ZmHSP90 was conducive to regulate Na+ transporters to maintain K+/Na+ balanced in tobacco

Circular RNA circPVT1 Promotes Proliferation and Invasion Through Sponging miR-125b and Activating E2F2 Signaling in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Background/Aims: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are key regulators in the development and progression of human cancers, however its role in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumorigenesis is not well understood. The aim of this study is to identify the expression level of circPVT1 in NSCLC and further investigated its functional relevance with NSCLC progression both in vitro and in vivo. Methods: Quantative real-time PCR was used for the measurement of circPVT1 in NSCLC specimens and cell lines. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis (FISH) assay was used for the identification of sublocation of circPVT1 in NSCLC cells. Bioinformatics analysis, luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) were performed to verify the binding of c-Fos at circPVT1 promoter region, and the direct interaction between circPVT1 and miR-125b. Gain- or loss-function assays were performed to evaluate the effects of circPVT1 on cell proliferation and invasion. Western blot and immunohistochemistry assays were performed to detect the protein levels involved in E2F2 pathway. Results: We found that circPVT1 was upregulated in NSCLC specimens and cells. The transcription factor c-Fos binded to the promoter region of circPVT1, resulting in the overexpression of circPVT1 in NSCLC. Knockdown of circPVT1 suppressed NSCLC cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and increased apoptosis. In addition, circPVT1 mediated NSCLC progression via the regulation of E2F2 signaling pathway. More importantly, circPVT1 was predominantly abundant in the cytoplasm of NSCLC cells, and circPVT1 could serve as a competing endogenous RNA to regulate E2F2 expression and tumorigenesis in a miR-125b-dependent manner, which is further verified by using an in vivo xenograft model. Conclusion: circPVT1 promotes NSCLC cell growth and invasion, and may serve as a promising therapeutic target for NSCLC patients. Therefore, silence of circPVT1 could be a future direction to develop a novel treatment strategy

Large scale analysis of positional effects of single-base mismatches on microarray gene expression data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Affymetrix GeneChips utilize 25-mer oligonucleotides probes linked to a silica surface to detect targets in solution. Mismatches due to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can affect the hybridization between probes and targets. Previous research has indicated that binding between probes and targets strongly depends on the positions of these mismatches. However, there has been substantial variability in the effect of mismatch type across studies.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>By taking advantage of naturally occurring mismatches between rhesus macaque transcripts and human probes from the Affymetrix U133 Plus 2 GeneChip, we collected the largest 25-mer probes dataset with single-base mismatches at each of the 25 positions on the probe ever used in this type of analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A mismatch at the center of a probe led to a greater loss in signal intensity than a mismatch at the ends of the probe, regardless of the mismatch type. There was a slight asymmetry between the ends of a probe: effects of mismatches at the 3' end of a probe were greater than those at the 5' end. A cross study comparison of the effect of mismatch types revealed that results were not in good agreement among different reports. However, if the mismatch types were consolidated to purine or pyrimidine mismatches, cross study conclusions could be generated.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The comprehensive assessment of the effects of single-base mismatches on microarrays provided in this report can be useful for improving future versions of microarray platform design and the corresponding data analysis algorithms.</p

Label Rectification Learning through Kernel Extreme Learning Machine

Along with the strong representation of the convolutional neural network (CNN), image classification tasks have achieved considerable progress. However, majority of works focus on designing complicated and redundant architectures for extracting informative features to improve classification performance. In this study, we concentrate on rectifying the incomplete outputs of CNN. To be concrete, we propose an innovative image classification method based on Label Rectification Learning (LRL) through kernel extreme learning machine (KELM). It mainly consists of two steps: (1) preclassification, extracting incomplete labels through a pretrained CNN, and (2) label rectification, rectifying the generated incomplete labels by the KELM to obtain the rectified labels. Experiments conducted on publicly available datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method. Notably, our method is extensible which can be easily integrated with off-the-shelf networks for improving performance

A Nanomesoporous Catalyst from Modified Red Mud and Its Application for Methane Decomposition to Hydrogen Production

A type of nanomesoporous modified red mud (MRM) catalyst was prepared and utilized for catalytic methane decomposition (CMD) to produce hydrogen. The modification process significantly simplified the mineral composition of the red mud (RM); in the meantime, the physical and chemical structure of RM was changed. TEM images suggested that MRM was a kind of nanomesoporous material assembled by a number of uniformly nanoscale particles, BET results showed that the pore size distributions of MRM were ranged from 3 to 12 nm, and the specific surface area and total pore volumes of red mud improved from 8.00 m2/g and 0.08 cm3/g to 190.61 m2/g and 0.39 cm3/g, respectively. The catalytic performance of the catalysts has been tested at 800°C; the results showed that MRM exhibited much higher activity and stability than RM for CMD

Preparation of Modified Red Mud-Supported Fe Catalysts for Hydrogen Production by Catalytic Methane Decomposition

A modified red mud- (MRM-) supported Fe catalyst (xFe/MRM) was prepared using the homogeneous precipitation method and applied to methane decomposition to produce hydrogen. The TEM and SEM-EDX results suggested that the particle sizes of the xFe/MRM catalysts were much smaller than that of raw red mud (RM), and the active metal Fe was evenly distributed over the catalyst structure. Moreover, BET results indicated that the surface areas and pore volumes of the catalysts were significantly improved, and the pore sizes of xFe/MRM were distributed from 5 to 12 nm, which is typical for a mesoporous material. The activities of those catalysts for the catalytic decomposition of methane were studied at atmospheric pressure at a moderate temperature of 650°C; the results showed that the xFe/MRM catalysts were more active than RM and MRM. The methane conversion curves of xFe/MRM catalysts exhibited similar variation tendencies (three-step) during the reaction despite different Fe contents, and the loading amount of Fe clearly affected the activity of the catalysts

Microwave ablation of multifocal primary liver cancer guided by real-time 3.0T MRI

AbstractObjective To investigate the feasibility and efficacy of real-time 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided percutaneous microwave ablation (MWA) in the treatment of multifocal liver cancer.Methods A total of 76 lesions in 26 patients with multifocal liver cancer who underwent 3.0 T MRI-guided microwave ablation in our hospital from April 2020 to April 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. The technical success rate, average operation time, average ablation time, and complications were evaluated. The upper abdomen was reviewed by pre- and post-contrast enhanced MRI scan every 1 months after the operation. The short-term curative effect was evaluated according to the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (mRECIST) criteria (2020 version), and the local control rate was calculated.Results All 76 lesions were successfully operated. The technical success rate was 100%, the average operation time was 103.58 ± 18.57 min, the average ablation time of a single lesion was 11.00 ± 4.05 min, and the average ablation power was 43.03 ± 4.45 W. There were no serious complications such as massive bleeding, liver failure, and infection after the operation, except in one case with a small amount of pleural effusion and one case with right upper abdominal pain. The average follow-up time was 13.88 ± 6.62 months. One patient died due to liver failure, and one lesion developed a local recurrence. The local control rate was 98.7%.Conclusions MWA of multifocal liver cancer guided by real-time 3.0 T MRI is a safe and feasible technique and has excellent short-term efficacy