99 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Land cover change along the Willamette River, Oregon
The Willamette River and its floodplain in northwest Oregon have changed dramatically since European settlement. At one time, the river was a vast complex system of braided channels with a broad floodplain forest; it has now been simplified by channelization and dams, and the forest has been removed to support agricultural and urban expansion. This thesis presents three research manuscripts, each of which uses remote sensing and Geographical Information System methods to capture the dynamic nature of land along the Willamette River. In the first article, the river and its floodplain were mapped at four time periods, ranging from pre-settlement to modern day. The paper reports that the river system has been greatly simplified, and the floodplain has lost much of its original forest. An overlay technique was used to identify potential floodplain restoration sites. The second paper details the creation of a landcover map for the Willamette Valley, which shows that the largest portion of the floodplain is now in agriculture, with a significant amount in a built condition. The third manuscript outlines a methodology for detecting land cover change along the river during a twenty-year period that coincides with the implementation of the Willamette River Greenway, a land use designation designed to restrict riparian land conversion. It shows that regressive change is still occuring along the river, although not at the same rate as outside the greenway. The three papers lay the foundation for a future study to analyze the socioeconomic conditions which promote change
Few Shot Learning for the Classification of Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy Images of Head and Neck Tumors
The surgical removal of head and neck tumors requires safe margins, which are
usually confirmed intraoperatively by means of frozen sections. This method is,
in itself, an oversampling procedure, which has a relatively low sensitivity
compared to the definitive tissue analysis on paraffin-embedded sections.
Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) is an in-vivo imaging technique that has
shown its potential in the live optical biopsy of tissue. An automated analysis
of this notoriously difficult to interpret modality would help surgeons.
However, the images of CLE show a wide variability of patterns, caused both by
individual factors but also, and most strongly, by the anatomical structures of
the imaged tissue, making it a challenging pattern recognition task. In this
work, we evaluate four popular few shot learning (FSL) methods towards their
capability of generalizing to unseen anatomical domains in CLE images. We
evaluate this on images of sinunasal tumors (SNT) from five patients and on
images of the vocal folds (VF) from 11 patients using a cross-validation
scheme. The best respective approach reached a median accuracy of 79.6% on the
rather homogeneous VF dataset, but only of 61.6% for the highly diverse SNT
dataset. Our results indicate that FSL on CLE images is viable, but strongly
affected by the number of patients, as well as the diversity of anatomical
patterns.Comment: 6 page
Transferability of Deep Learning Algorithms for Malignancy Detection in Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy Images from Different Anatomical Locations of the Upper Gastrointestinal Tract
Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) is the most common cancer type of the
epithelium and is often detected at a late stage. Besides invasive diagnosis of
SCC by means of biopsy and histo-pathologic assessment, Confocal Laser
Endomicroscopy (CLE) has emerged as noninvasive method that was successfully
used to diagnose SCC in vivo. For interpretation of CLE images, however,
extensive training is required, which limits its applicability and use in
clinical practice of the method. To aid diagnosis of SCC in a broader scope,
automatic detection methods have been proposed. This work compares two methods
with regard to their applicability in a transfer learning sense, i.e. training
on one tissue type (from one clinical team) and applying the learnt
classification system to another entity (different anatomy, different clinical
team). Besides a previously proposed, patch-based method based on convolutional
neural networks, a novel classification method on image level (based on a
pre-trained Inception V.3 network with dedicated preprocessing and
interpretation of class activation maps) is proposed and evaluated. The newly
presented approach improves recognition performance, yielding accuracies of
91.63% on the first data set (oral cavity) and 92.63% on a joint data set. The
generalization from oral cavity to the second data set (vocal folds) lead to
similar area-under-the-ROC curve values than a direct training on the vocal
folds data set, indicating good generalization.Comment: Erratum for version 1, correcting the number of CLE image sequences
used in one data se
An Estimation of the Extent of Cropland Abandonment in Mountainous Regions of China
With the wages for migrant workers increasing dramatically in China since 2003, the size of the agricultural labour forces has been shrinking rapidly. Intensively substituting agricultural machinery for the shrinking farm labour force is hardly possible for croplands in the mountainous regions of China where mechanization is difficult to achieve due to small field size and rough terrain. This has eventually led to cropland abandonment in these regions. Considering the high pressure for food security in China, cropland abandonment in the mountainous regions should not be ignored. By employing a novel method, this study estimates the extent of recently abandoned croplands (period 2000â2010) and the changes that can be expected in the future in China's mountainous areas. The results show that the total extent of abandoned croplands in Chinese mountainous counties during the period 2000 to 2010 is estimated at 147 million mu (1 mu = 666.67 m2); in total, about 28% of croplands in mountainous counties was abandoned, including croplands converted in the Grain for Green Programme. With 3 scenario assumptions, a sizeable extent, 114 to 203 million mu, of croplands may be abandoned from 2010 to 2030 with the rapid decrease and ageing of projected farm labour forces. This could exacerbate the future challenges of maintaining China's food security. A substantial increase in agricultural project investments, including land consolidation and agricultural productive fixed assets, especially microtillage machines, could help mitigate the risk of cropland abandonment. Additionally, landâuse and environmental policymaking should take into account the expanding cropland abandonment in mountainous regions
Development and validation of a classification and scoring system for the diagnosis of oral squamous cell carcinomas through confocal laser endomicroscopy
Strukturelle Determinanten des pestiviralen Glykoproteins E(RNS) fĂŒr die Retention, Sekretion und proteolytische Prozessierung
Das Genus Pestivirus gehört zur Familie der Flaviviridae und enthĂ€lt eine Reihe von tierpathogenen Erregern, welche (fast) ausschlieĂlich Paarhufer befallen. Das bei Pestiviren vorkommende Strukturprotein ERNS ist einzigartig in der Familie Flaviviridae, es finden sich keine homologen Proteine in den anderen Genera dieser Familie. ERNS ist ein sehr ungewöhnliches Protein, da es fĂŒr ein virales Strukturprotein verschiedene untypische Eigenschaften aufweist. Neben einer intrinsischen RNase-AktivitĂ€t findet sich am C Terminus eine sehr ungewöhnliche Signalpeptidase-Spaltstelle. WĂ€hrend die RNase AktivitĂ€t einen wichtigen Virulenzfaktor darstellt, sorgt die ungewöhnliche Spaltstelle mutmaĂlich fĂŒr die verlangsamte Prozessierung des ERNS-E1-VorlĂ€uferproteins. Inwieweit die verlangsamte Spaltung des VorlĂ€uferproteins fĂŒr das Virus wichtig sein könnte, ist bis dato noch ungeklĂ€rt. Auch ist die Ausbildung von Dimeren wichtig fĂŒr die Virulenz von ERNS. DarĂŒber hinaus erfolgt eine partielle Sekretion von ERNS in den extrazellulĂ€ren Raum, wĂ€hrend ein GroĂteil in der Zelle verbleibt. ZusĂ€tzlich verfĂŒgt ERNS ĂŒber eine untypische Membranverankerung, die durch eine lange, C-terminale amphipathische Helix vermittelt wird. Innerhalb dieser amphipathischen Helix findet sich eine Reihe geladener AminosĂ€uren, deren Lokalisation und Anordnung zu zwei spiegelsymmetrisch komplementĂ€ren Gruppen bei Pestiviren konserviert ist. Es stellte sich die Frage, welche biologische Relevanz dieses Muster an geladenen AminosĂ€uren haben könnte. Ausgehend von der vorgeschlagenen Ausbildung eines âCharge Zippersâ â durch RĂŒckfaltung und Ausbildung von SalzbrĂŒcken zwischen den komplementĂ€ren Ladungen â, wurden mittels transienten Expressionsexperimenten die sechs hoch konservierten Ladungen im âInnerenâ des möglichen âReiĂverschlussesâ untersucht, und es zeigte sich, dass der postulierte Charge-Zipper-Mechanismus bei ERNS vermutlich keine Rolle spielt. FĂŒr einige der betrachteten AminosĂ€uren konnten Hinweise erhalten werden, dass sie eine Rolle bei der Prozessierung, der Retention und bei der Dimerisierung von ERNS spielen. Vor allem ein Austausch der Ladung an der Position 194 im ERNS zeigte einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die Prozessierung und Retention von ERNS. Auch bei der Dimerisierung stach diese Position hervor, da entgegen anderer Mutationen ein Austausch hier zu einer vermehrten Dimerbildung fĂŒhrte. WeiterfĂŒhrend wurden diese Mutationen in rekombinante Viren eingefĂŒhrt, und es zeigte sich, dass vor allem die spezifischen Ladungen an den Positionen 184 und 191 im ERNS wichtig fĂŒr die effiziente Virusvermehrung sind. Ladungsaustausche an diesen Positionen sorgten fĂŒr nicht lebensfĂ€hige Virusmutanten, wĂ€hrend Alaninsubstitutionen im Lauf von Passagen zur ursprĂŒnglichen Ladung revertierten. Diese Ergebnisse zeigen die elementare Bedeutung der Ladungen fĂŒr die Generierung von infektiösen Viren. Die molekularen Mechanismen, in denen diese Reste von Bedeutung sind, mĂŒssen in weiteren Arbeiten noch aufgeklĂ€rt werden.The genus Pestivirus belongs to the family Flaviviridae and contains several pathogens which (almost) exclusively infect cloven-hoofed animals. The pestiviral structural protein ERNS is unique within the Flaviviridae with no homologous protein being found in the other genera of this family. ERNS is a quite uncommon viral structural protein with various atypical properties. In addition to an intrinsic RNase activity, a very unusual signal peptidase cleavage site can be found at the C-terminal end of ERNS. While the RNase activity is an important virulence factor of pestiviruses, it is assumed that the unusual signal peptidase cleavage site might be involved in the slow processing of the ERNS-E1 precursor protein. To what extent the slow cleavage of the precursor protein might be important for the virus has still not been clarified. Furthermore, the formation of dimers is also important for the virulence of ERNS. In addition, ERNS is partially secreted into the extracellular space, while the majority remains inside the cell. It is worth remarking that ERNS possesses a very uncommon membrane anchoring mediated by a long, C-terminal amphipathic helix. Within this amphipathic helix a series of charged amino acids can be found. Their location and arrangement of two mirror-symmetric complementary groups is highly conserved among pestiviruses. The question arose whether this pattern of charged amino acids might be of any biological relevance. Based on the proposed formation of a "charge zipper" â by refolding and formation of salt bridges between the complementary charges â transient expression experiments were performed with a focus on the six âinnermostâ highly conserved charges of the assumed charge zipper. The respective results suggest that the postulated charge zipper mechanism might probably not be applicable to ERNS. For some of the amino acids examined, evidence was obtained that they might play a part in the processing, retention and dimerization of ERNS. Particularly a charge exchange at position 194 in ERNS showed a significant influence on the processing and retention of the protein. Regarding an influence on the dimerization of ERNS, position 194 stood out again. Contrary to other mutations, a charge exchange at this position lead to an increase in dimer formation. In addition, mutations were introduced in recombinant viruses, and it was shown that the particular charges at position 184 and 191 in ERNS are important for efficient virus proliferation. Charge exchanges at these positions lead to non-viable virus mutants, while alanine substitutions reverted back to the original charge over several virus passages. These results show the elemental relevance of these charges for the generation of infectious viruses. The molecular mechanisms for which these residues are of particular importance have to be solved in further studies
An experiment of the effect of polystyrene pellets on the performance of Arenicola marina (Linnaeus, 1758)
- âŠ