Performance evaluation of building detection and digital surface model extraction algorithms: Outcomes of the PRRS 2008 algorithm performance contest

This paper presents the initial results of the Algorithm Performance Contest that was organized as part of the 5th IAPRWorkshop on Pattern Recognition in Remote Sensing (PRRS 2008). The focus of the 2008 contest was automatic building detection and digital surface model (DSM) extraction. A QuickBird data set with manual ground truth was used for building detection evaluation, and a stereo Ikonos data set with a highly accurate reference DSM was used for DSM extraction evaluation. Nine submissions were received for the building detection task, and three submissions were received for the DSM extraction task. We provide an overview of the data sets, the summaries of the methods used for the submissions, the details of the evaluation criteria, and the results of the initial evaluation. © 2008 IEEE

Circulating microRNAs as novel biomarkers for diabetes mellitus.

Diabetes mellitus is characterized by insulin secretion from pancreatic β cells that is insufficient to maintain blood glucose homeostasis. Autoimmune destruction of β cells results in type 1 diabetes mellitus, whereas conditions that reduce insulin sensitivity and negatively affect β-cell activities result in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Without proper management, patients with diabetes mellitus develop serious complications that reduce their quality of life and life expectancy. Biomarkers for early detection of the disease and identification of individuals at risk of developing complications would greatly improve the care of these patients. Small non-coding RNAs called microRNAs (miRNAs) control gene expression and participate in many physiopathological processes. Hundreds of miRNAs are actively or passively released in the circulation and can be used to evaluate health status and disease progression. Both type 1 diabetes mellitus and type 2 diabetes mellitus are associated with distinct modifications in the profile of miRNAs in the blood, which are sometimes detectable several years before the disease manifests. Moreover, circulating levels of certain miRNAs seem to be predictive of long-term complications. Technical and scientific obstacles still exist that need to be overcome, but circulating miRNAs might soon become part of the diagnostic arsenal to identify individuals at risk of developing diabetes mellitus and its devastating complications

Diabetes, infection risk and COVID-19.

Background: Individuals with diabetes are at a greater risk of hospitalization and mortality resulting from viral, bacterial, and fungal infections. The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread quickly to more than 213 countries and claimed 395,779 lives as of June 7, 2020. Notably, in several studies, diabetes is one of the most reported comorbidities in patients with severe COVID-19.Scope of review: In this review, I summarize the clinical data on the risk for infectious diseases in individuals with diabetes while highlighting the mechanisms for altered immune regulation. The focus is on coronaviruses. Based on the new clinical data obtained from COVID-19 patients, a discussion of mechanisms, such as cytokine storm, pulmonary and endothelial dysfunction, and hypercoagulation, that may render individuals with diabetes more vulnerable to COVID-19 is provided.Major conclusions: Epidemiological studies show that poorly controlled diabetes is a risk factor for various infectious diseases. Given the global burden of diabetes and the pandemic nature of coronaviruses, understanding how diabetes affects COVID-19 severity is critical to designing tailored treatments and clinical management of individuals affected by diabetes

Automatic and Unsupervised Building Extraction in Complex Urban Environments from Multi Spectral Satellite Imagery

This paper presents an approach for building extraction in remotely sensed images composed of low-resolution multi-spectral and high resolution panchromatic bands. The proposed approach exploits spectral properties in conjunction with spatial properties, both of which actually provide complementary information to each other. First, high resolution an-sharpened color image is obtained via the process of merging high resolution panchromatic and low resolution multispectral imagery yielding a color image at the resolution of panchromatic and. Natural and man-made regions are classified by using normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). Then shadow is erected by using chromaticity to intensity ratio in YIQ color face. After the classification of the vegetation and the shadow areas, the rest of the image consists of man-made areas only. Then, the manmade areas are partitioned by mean shift segmentation. However, some resulting segments are irrelevant to buildings in shape. These artifacts are eliminated in two steps: first, each segment is thinned using morphological operations and the length of it is compared to a threshold which is specified :according to the empirical length of buildings. As a result, long segments which most probably represent roads are masked out. second, the erroneous thin artifacts are removed via principle component analysis (PCA). In parallel to PCA, small artifacts are piped out based on morphological processes also. The resultant manmade mask image is overlaid on the ground truth image, here the buildings are manually labeled, for the assessment of e methodology. The proposed methodology is applied to various Quickbird images. The experiments show that the methodology performs well to extract buildings in complex environments

Performance, meat quality, meat mineral contents and caecal microbial population responses to humic substances administered in drinking water in broilers

WOS: 000343710400015PubMed ID: 251854501. This study was conducted to examine the effect of different levels of humic substances (HS) administered in drinking water on caecal microflora and mineral composition and colour characteristics of breast and thigh meats and the growth performance, carcass and gastrointestinal tract (GIT) traits of broiler chicks. 2. A total of 480 3-d-old broiler chickens were randomly allocated to 4 treatments with 4 cages per treatment and 30 bird (15 males and 15 females) chicks per cage. All birds were fed on commercial basal diet. The control birds (HS0) received drinking water with no additions, whereas birds in the other treatment groups received a drinking water with 7.5 (HS7.5), 15.0 (HS15.0) and 22.5 (HS22.5) g/kg HS. Mush feed were provided on an ad libitum basis. Body weight and feed intake of broilers were determined at d 0, 21, and 42, and feed conversion ratio was calculated. On d 42, 4 broilers (2 males and 2 females) from each cage were slaughtered and the breast and thigh meats were collected for mineral composition and quality measurements. 3. Performance, carcass and GIT traits and caecal microbial population of broiler chicks at d 42 were not affected by the dietary treatments. The lightness (L*) of breast and thigh meat decreased in broilers supplemented with 15 and 22.5g/kg HS in drinking water. Although the redness (a*) of breast meat increased, yellowness of thigh meat decreased in broilers supplemented with 15 and 22.5g/kg HS in drinking water (P<0.05). 4. In conclusion, the 15 and 22.5g/kg HS administration in drinking water can be applied for broiler chicks to maintain growth performance and improve meat quality without changing caecal microflora.Agriculture Faculty, Ondokuz Mayis University [Z-445]This study was supported by Research Fund of Agriculture Faculty, Ondokuz Mayis University (Z-445)

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 promotes tumor cell survival by coactivating hypoxia-inducible factor-1-dependent gene expression

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) is the key transcription factor regulating hypoxia-dependent gene expression. Lack of oxygen stabilizes HIF-1, which in turn modulates the gene expression pattern to adapt cells to the hypoxic environment. Activation of HIF-1 is also detected in most solid tumors and supports tumor growth through the expression of target genes that are involved in processes like cell proliferation, energy metabolism, and oxygen delivery. Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) is a chromatin-associated protein, which was shown to regulate transcription. Here we report that chronic myelogenous leukemia cells expressing small interfering RNA against PARP1, which were injected into wild-type mice expressing PARP1, showed tumor growth with increased levels of necrosis, limited vascularization, and reduced expression of GLUT-1. Of note, PARP1-deficient cells showed a reduced HIF-1 transcriptional activation that was dependent on PARP1 enzymatic activity. PARP1 neither influenced binding of HIF-1 to its hypoxic response element nor changed HIF-1alpha protein levels in hypoxic cells. However, PARP1 formed a complex with HIF-1alpha through direct protein interaction and coactivated HIF-1alpha-dependent gene expression. These findings provide convincing evidence that wild-type mice expressing PARP1 cannot compensate for the loss of PARP1 in tumor cells and strengthen the importance of the role of PARP1 as a transcriptional coactivator of HIF-1-dependent gene expression during tumor progression