Autonomous Direct 3D Segmentation of Articular Knee Cartilage

The aim of the work presented here, is to speed up the entire evaluation process of articular knee cartilage and the associated medication developments for Osteoarthritis. To enable this, the development of an automated direct 3D segmentation is described that incorporates non-linear diffusion for efficient image denoising. Cartilage specific magnetic resonance imaging is used, which allows acquiring the entire cartilage volume as one 3D image. The segmentation itself is based on level sets for their accuracy, stability and topological flexibility. By using this kind of segmentation, it is hoped to improve the time efficiency and accuracy for quantitative and qualitative integrity evaluation of cartilage and to enable an earlier diagnosis and treatment of Osteoarthritis

Comparative transcriptomics in the Triticeae

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Barley and particularly wheat are two grass species of immense agricultural importance. In spite of polyploidization events within the latter, studies have shown that genotypically and phenotypically these species are very closely related and, indeed, fertile hybrids can be created by interbreeding. The advent of two genome-scale Affymetrix GeneChips now allows studies of the comparison of their transcriptomes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have used the Wheat GeneChip to create a "gene expression atlas" for the wheat transcriptome (cv. Chinese Spring). For this, we chose mRNA from a range of tissues and developmental stages closely mirroring a comparable study carried out for barley (cv. Morex) using the Barley1 GeneChip. This, together with large-scale clustering of the probesets from the two GeneChips into "homologous groups", has allowed us to perform a genomic-scale comparative study of expression patterns in these two species. We explore the influence of the polyploidy of wheat on the results obtained with the Wheat GeneChip and quantify the correlation between conservation in gene sequence and gene expression in wheat and barley. In addition, we show how the conservation of expression patterns can be used to elucidate, probeset by probeset, the reliability of the Wheat GeneChip.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>While there are many differences in expression on the level of individual genes and tissues, we demonstrate that the wheat and barley transcriptomes appear highly correlated. This finding is significant not only because given small evolutionary distance between the two species it is widely expected, but also because it demonstrates that it is possible to use the two GeneChips for comparative studies. This is the case even though their probeset composition reflects rather different design principles as well as, of course, the present incomplete knowledge of the gene content of the two species. We also show that, in general, the Wheat GeneChip is not able to distinguish contributions from individual homoeologs. Furthermore, the comparison between the two species leads us to conclude that the conservation of both gene sequence as well as gene expression is positively correlated with absolute expression levels, presumably reflecting increased selection pressure on genes coding for proteins present at high levels. In addition, the results indicate the presence of a correlation between sequence and expression conservation within the Triticeae.</p

Phenomenological control as cold control

We first review recent work from our laboratory, which construes hypnotizability as an example of a more general trait of capacity for phenomenological control, which people can use to create subjective experiences in many nonhypnotic contexts where those experiences fulfill people's goals. Second, we review recent work, which construes phenomenological control as a specifically metacognitive process, where intentional cognitive and motor action occurs without awareness of specific intentions (cold control theory). In terms of the reach of phenomenological control, we argue that various laboratory phenomena, namely vicarious pain, mirror-touch synesthesia, and the rubber hand illusion are to an unknown degree a construction of phenomenological control. The argument can of course be extended in principle to other findings. In terms of the reach of cold control, we present a new theory of intentional binding and show how intentional binding can measure the absence of conscious intentions in the hypnotic context. We obtain no evidence that cold control confers abilities beyond the changes in the metacognitive monitoring it postulates, and we explore the negative correlation between mindfulness and cold control viewed as a lack of mindfulness of intentions

Phenomenological control as cold control

We first review recent work from our laboratory, which construes hypnotizability as an example of a more general trait of capacity for phenomenological control, which people can use to create subjective experiences in many nonhypnotic contexts where those experiences fulfill people’s goals. Second, we review recent work, which construes phenomenological control as a specifically metacognitive process, where intentional cognitive and motor action occurs without awareness of specific intentions (cold control theory). In terms of the reach of phenomenological control, we argue that various laboratory phenomena, namely vicarious pain, mirror-touch synesthesia, and the rubber hand illusion are to an unknown degree a construction of phenomenological control. The argument can of course be extended in principle to other findings. In terms of the reach of cold control, we present a new theory of intentional binding and show how intentional binding can measure the absence of conscious intentions in the hypnotic context. We obtain no evidence that cold control confers abilities beyond the changes in the metacognitive monitoring it postulates, and we explore the negative correlation between mindfulness and cold control viewed as a lack of mindfulness of intentions

Nonlinear Evolution of Cosmological Structures in Warm Dark Matter Models

The dark energy dominated warm dark matter (WDM) model is a promising alternative cosmological scenario. We explore large-scale structure formation in this paradigm. We do this in two different ways: with the halo model approach and with the help of an ensemble of high resolution N-body simulations. Combining these quasi-independent approaches, leads to a physical understanding of the important processes which shape the formation of structures. We take a detailed look at the halo mass function, the concentrations and the linear halo bias of WDM. In all cases we find interesting deviations with respect to CDM. In particular, the concentration-mass relation displays a turnover for group scale dark matter haloes, for the case of WDM particles with masses of the order ~0.25 keV. This may be interpreted as a hint for top-down structure formation on small scales. We implement our results into the halo model and find much better agreement with simulations. On small scales the WDM halo model now performs as well as its CDM counterpart.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA

The fourth phase of the radiative transfer model intercomparison (RAMI) exercise : Actual canopy scenarios and conformity testing

The RAdiative transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) activity focuses on the benchmarking of canopy radiative transfer (RT) models. For the current fourth phase of RAMI, six highly realistic virtual plant environments were constructed on the basis of intensive field data collected from (both deciduous and coniferous) forest stands as well as test sites in Europe and South Africa. Twelve RT modelling groups provided simulations of canopy scale (directional and hemispherically integrated) radiative quantities, as well as a series of binary hemispherical photographs acquired from different locations within the virtual canopies. The simulation results showed much greater variance than those recently analysed for the abstract canopy scenarios of RAMI-IV. Canopy complexity is among the most likely drivers behind operator induced errors that gave rise to the discrepancies. Conformity testing was introduced to separate the simulation results into acceptable and non-acceptable contributions. More specifically, a shared risk approach is used to evaluate the compliance of RI model simulations on the basis of reference data generated with the weighted ensemble averaging technique from ISO-13528. However, using concepts from legal metrology, the uncertainty of this reference solution will be shown to prevent a confident assessment of model performance with respect to the selected tolerance intervals. As an alternative, guarded risk decision rules will be presented to account explicitly for the uncertainty associated with the reference and candidate methods. Both guarded acceptance and guarded rejection approaches are used to make confident statements about the acceptance and/or rejection of RT model simulations with respect to the predefined tolerance intervals. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.Peer reviewe

Observation of an Excited Bc+ State

Using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 8.5 fb-1 recorded by the LHCb experiment at center-of-mass energies of s=7, 8, and 13 TeV, the observation of an excited Bc+ state in the Bc+π+π- invariant-mass spectrum is reported. The observed peak has a mass of 6841.2±0.6(stat)±0.1(syst)±0.8(Bc+) MeV/c2, where the last uncertainty is due to the limited knowledge of the Bc+ mass. It is consistent with expectations of the Bc∗(2S31)+ state reconstructed without the low-energy photon from the Bc∗(1S31)+→Bc+γ decay following Bc∗(2S31)+→Bc∗(1S31)+π+π-. A second state is seen with a global (local) statistical significance of 2.2σ (3.2σ) and a mass of 6872.1±1.3(stat)±0.1(syst)±0.8(Bc+) MeV/c2, and is consistent with the Bc(2S10)+ state. These mass measurements are the most precise to date