Denoising magnetic resonance images using collaborative non-local means

Noise artifacts in magnetic resonance (MR) images increase the complexity of image processing workflows and decrease the reliability of inferences drawn from the images. It is thus often desirable to remove such artifacts beforehand for more robust and effective quantitative analysis. It is important to preserve the integrity of relevant image information while removing noise in MR images. A variety of approaches have been developed for this purpose, and the non-local means (NLM) filter has been shown to be able to achieve state-of-the-art denoising performance. For effective denoising, NLM relies heavily on the existence of repeating structural patterns, which however might not always be present within a single image. This is especially true when one considers the fact that the human brain is complex and contains a lot of unique structures. In this paper we propose to leverage the repeating structures from multiple images to collaboratively denoise an image. The underlying assumption is that it is more likely to find repeating structures from multiple scans than from a single scan. Specifically, to denoise a target image, multiple images, which may be acquired from different subjects, are spatially aligned to the target image, and an NLM-like block matching is performed on these aligned images with the target image as the reference. This will significantly increase the number of matching structures and thus boost the denoising performance. Experiments on both synthetic and real data show that the proposed approach, collaborative non-local means (CNLM), outperforms the classic NLM and yields results with markedly improved structural details

Endogenous Opiates in the Nucleus Tractus Solitarius Mediate Electroacupuncture-Induced Sleep Activities in Rats

Electroacupuncture (EA) possesses various therapeutic effects, including alleviation of pain, reduction of inflammation and improvement of sleep disturbance. The mechanisms of EA on sleep improvement, however, remain to be determined. It has been stated in ancient Chinese literature that the Anmian (EX17) acupoint is one of the trigger points that alleviates insomnia. We previously demonstrated that EA stimulation of Anmian acupoints in rats during the dark period enhances non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, which involves the induction of cholinergic activity in the nucleus tractus solitarius (NTS). In addition to cholinergic activation of the NTS, activation of the endogenous opioidergic system may also be a mechanism by which acupuncture affects sleep. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the involvement of the NTS opioidergic system in EA-induced alterations in sleep. Our present results indicate that EA of Anmian acupoints increased NREM sleep, but not rapid eye movement sleep, during the dark period in rats. This enhancement in NREM sleep was dose-dependently blocked by microinjection of opioid receptor antagonist, naloxone, and the μ-opioid receptor antagonist, naloxonazine, into the NTS; administrations of δ-receptor antagonist, natrindole, and the κ-receptor antagonist, nor-binaltrophimine, however, did not affect EA-induced alterations in sleep. Furthermore, β-endorphin was significantly increased in both the brainstem and hippocampus after the EA stimuli, an effect blocked by administration of the muscarinic antagonist scopolamine into the NTS. Our findings suggest that mechanisms of EA-induced NREM sleep enhancement may be mediated, in part, by cholinergic activation, stimulation of the opiodergic neurons to increase the concentrations of β-endorphin and the involvement of the μ-opioid receptors

Correlation of survivin, p53 and Ki-67 in laryngeal cancer Hep-2 cell proliferation and invasion

AbstractObjectiveTo investigate the mechanism of survivin, p53 and Ki-67 on Hep-2 human laryngeal cancer endothelial cell proliferation and invasion.MethodsLaryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and paracancerous normal tissues were collected, total RNA was extracted from tissues, survivin, p53 and Ki-67 gene mRNA expression levels in laryngeal cancer and the adjacent tissues were detected by Real-time PCR. Human laryngeal cancer Hep-2 epithelial cells were selected, survivin gene was overexpressed, and cell proliferation was detected by MTT. p53 and Ki-67 gene expression changes in overexpressed survivin gene were detected by Western blot. Changes in Hep-2 cell invasive ability were studied when survivin was overexpressed as detected by Transwell invasion assay.ResultsIn the adjacent tissues, survivin, p53 and Ki-67 gene relative expression levels were 1.72 ± 0.9, 13.7 ± 5.7 and 5.7 ± 1.3, respectively; while in cancer tissues, gene relative expression levels were 53.7 ± 8.3, 66.7 ± 5.2 and 61.0 ± 3.1, respectively, which was significantly increased. As detected by MTT, relative cell survival rate within 12 h of survivin overexpression were: load control group (88.5 ± 1.6)%; overexpressed group (90.3 ± 1.9)%. Transwell invasion assay results indicated that overexpressed survivin could significantly increase the relative survival rate of cells.ConclusionsExpressions of p53, Ki67 and survivin are increased in cancer; and there is a positive correlation between survivin, p53 and Ki67 expressions in laryngeal carcinoma

Characterizing Kirkwood-Dirac nonclassicality and uncertainty diagram based on discrete Fourier transform

In this paper, we investigate the Kirkwood-Dirac nonclassicality and uncertainty diagram based on discrete Fourier transform (DFT) in a $d$ dimensional system. The uncertainty diagram of complete incompatibility bases $\mathcal {A},\mathcal {B}$ are characterized by De Bi\`{e}vre [arXiv: 2207.07451]. We show that for the uncertainty diagram of the DFT matrix which is a transition matrix from basis $\mathcal {A}$ to basis $\mathcal {B}$, there is no ``hole" in the region of the $(n_{\mathcal {A}}, n_{\mathcal {B}})$-plane above and on the line $n_{\mathcal {A}}+n_{\mathcal {B}}\geq d+1$, whether the bases $\mathcal {A},\mathcal {B}$ are not complete incompatible bases or not. Then we present that the KD nonclassicality of a state based on the DFT matrix can be completely characterized by using the support uncertainty relation $n_{\mathcal {A}}(\psi)n_{\mathcal {B}}(\psi)\geq d$, where $n_{\mathcal {A}}(\psi)$ and $n_{\mathcal {B}}(\psi)$ count the number of nonvanishing coefficients in the basis $\mathcal {A}$ and $\mathcal {B}$ representations, respectively. That is, a state $|\psi\rangle$ is KD nonclassical if and only if $n_{\mathcal {A}}(\psi)n_{\mathcal {B}}(\psi)> d$, whenever $d$ is prime or not. That gives a positive answer to the conjecture in [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{127}, 190404 (2021)]

Universal Seesaw from Left-Right and Peccei-Quinn Symmetry Breaking

To generate the lepton and quark masses in the left-right symmetric models, we can consider a universal seesaw scenario by integrating out heavy fermion singlets which have the Yukawa couplings with the fermion and Higgs doublets. The universal seesaw scenario can also accommodate the leptogenesis with Majorana or Dirac neutrinos. We show the fermion singlets can obtain their heavy masses from certain global symmetry breaking, which is driven by one complex scalar singlet or two. The global symmetry can be identified to the Peccei-Quinn symmetry since it is mediated to the standard model quarks at tree and/or loop level.Comment: 4 page