Visual Place Recognition From Eye Reflection

The cornea in the human eye reflects incoming environmental light, which means we can obtain information about the surrounding environment from the corneal reflection in facial images. In recent years, as the quality of consumer cameras increases, this has caused privacy concerns in terms of identifying the people around the subject or where the photo is taken. This paper investigates the security risk of eye corneal reflection images: specifically, visual place recognition from eye reflection images. First, we constructed two datasets containing pairs of scene and corneal reflection images. The first dataset is taken in a virtual environment. We showed pre-captured scene images in a 180-degree surrounding display system and took corneal reflections from subjects. The second dataset is taken in an outdoor environment. We developed several visual place recognition algorithms, including CNN-based image descriptors featuring a naive Siamese network and AFD-Net combined with entire image feature representations including VLAD and NetVLAD, and compared the results. We found that AFD-Net+VLAD performed the best and was able to accurately determine the scene in 73.08% of the top-five candidate scenes. These results demonstrate the potential to estimate the location at which a facial picture was taken, which simultaneously leads to a) positive applications such as the localization of a robot while conversing with persons and b) negative scenarios including the security risk of uploading facial images to the public

Septins promote dendrite and axon development by negatively regulating microtubule stability via HDAC6-mediated deacetylation

Neurite growth requires two guanine nucleotide-binding protein polymers of tubulins and septins. However, whether and how those cytoskeletal systems are coordinated was unknown. Here we show that the acute knockdown or knockout of the pivotal septin subunit SEPT7 from cerebrocortical neurons impairs their interhemispheric and cerebrospinal axon projections and dendritogenesis in perinatal mice, when the microtubules are severely hyperacetylated. The resulting hyperstabilization and growth retardation of microtubules are demonstrated in vitro. The phenotypic similarity between SEPT7 depletion and the pharmacological inhibition of α-tubulin deacetylase HDAC6 reveals that HDAC6 requires SEPT7 not for its enzymatic activity, but to associate with acetylated α-tubulin. These and other findings indicate that septins provide a physical scaffold for HDAC6 to achieve efficient microtubule deacetylation, thereby negatively regulating microtubule stability to an optimal level for neuritogenesis. Our findings shed light on the mechanisms underlying the HDAC6-mediated coupling of the two ubiquitous cytoskeletal systems during neural development

Observation of gigantic spin conversion anisotropy in bismuth

Whilst the g-factor can be anisotropic due to the spin-orbit interaction (SOI), its existence in solids cannot be simply asserted from a band structure, which hinders progress on studies from such the viewpoints. The g-factor in bismuth (Bi) is largely anisotropic; especially for holes at T-point, the g-factor perpendicular to the trigonal axis is negligibly small (< 0.112), whereas the g-factor along the trigonal axis is very large (62.7). We clarified in this work that the large g- factor anisotropy gives rise to the gigantic spin conversion anisotropy in Bi from experimental and theoretical approaches. Spin-torque ferromagnetic resonance was applied to estimate the spin conversion efficiency in rhombohedral (110) Bi to be 17%, which is unlike the negligibly small efficiency in Bi(111). Harmonic Hall measurements supports the large spin conversion efficiency in Bi(110). This is the first observation of gigantic spin conversion anisotropy as the clear manifestation of the g-factor anisotropy. Beyond the emblematic case of Bi, our study unveiled the significance of the g-factor anisotropy in condensed-matter physics and can pave a pathway toward establishing novel spin physics under g-factor control.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure

Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation on the PC-5 and PC-6 Points Alleviated Hypotension after Epidural Anaesthesia, Depending on the Stimulus Frequency

Neuraxial blockade causes arterial hypotension. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) at the Neiguan (PC-6) and Jianshi (PC-5) reduces the severity of hypotension after spinal anaesthesia, but did not clarify the optimal stimulus frequency. We hypothesized that the stimulus frequency of TENS at the PC-6 and PC-5 points would influence the severity of hypotension after epidural anaesthesia. 65 ASA I or II male patients presenting for inguinal hernia repair were randomized to five groups: the control group received no treatment; the 2 Hz, 10 Hz, 20 Hz, and 40 Hz groups received TENS at a frequency of 2 Hz, 10 Hz, 20 Hz, and 40 Hz, respectively. The lowest SBP was significantly higher in the 40 Hz group [the control, 84 (74–110) mmHg; the 2 Hz, 96 (62–116) mmHg; the 10 Hz, 100 (68–110) mmHg; the 20 Hz, 96 (64–115) mmHg; the 40 Hz, 104 (75–140) mmHg: P = 0.004]. Significantly less patients experienced hypotension in the 40 Hz group [the control, 78%; the 2 Hz, 43%; the 10 Hz, 38%; the 20 Hz, 38%; the 40 Hz, 8%: P = 0.008]. TENS on the PC-6 and PC-5 points reduced the severity and incidence of hypotension after epidural anaesthesia, depending on the stimulus frequency

Drug Repositioning for Cardiac Arrest

The survival rate of cardiac arrest patients is less than 10%; therefore, development of a therapeutic strategy that improves their prognosis is necessary. Herein, we searched data collected from medical facilities throughout Japan for drugs that improve the survival rate of cardiac arrest patients. Candidate drugs, which could improve the prognosis of cardiac arrest patients, were extracted using “TargetMine,” a drug discovery tool. We investigated whether the candidate drugs were among the drugs administered within 1 month after cardiac arrest in data of cardiac arrest cases obtained from the Japan Medical Data Center. Logistic regression analysis was performed, with the explanatory variables being the presence or absence of the administration of those candidate drugs that were administered to ≥10 patients and the objective variable being the “survival discharge.” Adjusted odds ratios for survival discharge were calculated using propensity scores for drugs that significantly improved the proportion of survival discharge; the influence of covariates, such as patient background, medical history, and treatment factors, was excluded by the inverse probability-of-treatment weighted method. Using the search strategy, we extracted 165 drugs with vasodilator activity as candidate drugs. Drugs not approved in Japan, oral medicines, and external medicines were excluded. Then, we investigated whether the candidate drugs were administered to the 2,227 cardiac arrest patients included in this study. The results of the logistic regression analysis showed that three (isosorbide dinitrate, nitroglycerin, and nicardipine) of seven drugs that were administered to ≥10 patients showed significant association with improvement in the proportion of survival discharge. Further analyses using propensity scores revealed that the adjusted odds ratios for survival discharge for patients administered isosorbide dinitrate, nitroglycerin, and nicardipine were 3.35, 5.44, and 4.58, respectively. Thus, it can be suggested that isosorbide dinitrate, nitroglycerin, and nicardipine could be novel therapeutic agents for improving the prognosis of cardiac arrest patients

Analysis of gut microbiome, host genetics, and plasma metabolites reveals gut microbiome-host interactions in the Japanese population

Interaction between the gut microbiome and host plays a key role in human health. Here, we perform a metagenome shotgun-sequencing-based analysis of Japanese participants to reveal associations between the gut microbiome, host genetics, and plasma metabolome. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) for microbial species (n = 524) identifies associations between the PDE1C gene locus and Bacteroides intestinalis and between TGIF2 and TGIF2-RAB5IF gene loci and Bacteroides acidifiaciens. In a microbial gene ortholog GWAS, agaE and agaS, which are related to the metabolism of carbohydrates forming the blood group A antigen, are associated with blood group A in a manner depending on the secretor status determined by the East Asian-specific FUT2 variant. A microbiome-metabolome association analysis (n = 261) identifies associations between bile acids and microbial features such as bile acid metabolism gene orthologs including bai and 7β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. Our publicly available data will be a useful resource for understanding gut microbiome-host interactions in an underrepresented population.Tomofuji Yoshihiko, Kishikawa Toshihiro, Sonehara Kyuto, et al. Analysis of gut microbiome, host genetics, and plasma metabolites reveals gut microbiome-host interactions in the Japanese population. Cell Reports 42, 113324 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113324