End-to-end Remote Sensing Change Detection of Unregistered Bi-temporal Images for Natural Disasters

Change detection based on remote sensing images has been a prominent area of interest in the field of remote sensing. Deep networks have demonstrated significant success in detecting changes in bi-temporal remote sensing images and have found applications in various fields. Given the degradation of natural environments and the frequent occurrence of natural disasters, accurately and swiftly identifying damaged buildings in disaster-stricken areas through remote sensing images holds immense significance. This paper aims to investigate change detection specifically for natural disasters. Considering that existing public datasets used in change detection research are registered, which does not align with the practical scenario where bi-temporal images are not matched, this paper introduces an unregistered end-to-end change detection synthetic dataset called xBD-E2ECD. Furthermore, we propose an end-to-end change detection network named E2ECDNet, which takes an unregistered bi-temporal image pair as input and simultaneously generates the flow field prediction result and the change detection prediction result. It is worth noting that our E2ECDNet also supports change detection for registered image pairs, as registration can be seen as a special case of non-registration. Additionally, this paper redefines the criteria for correctly predicting a positive case and introduces neighborhood-based change detection evaluation metrics. The experimental results have demonstrated significant improvements

The study of Mg isotope compositions of terrestrial rocks and meteorites

The study of Mg isotopes has been carried out for about 40 years since 1970s. With analytical progress, the study is not only limited to the excess of 26Mg due to decay of short-lived 26Al in primitive meteorites, also extended to mass-dependent fractionation of Mg isotopes in meteorites and terrestrial rocks. This paper reviews recent development in Mg isotope researches

Grove Mountains (GRV) 024237: A new ureilite from Antarctica

Ureilites share the characteristics of differentiated meteorites and of primary chondrites. GRV 024237 is a ureilite, which was found in the 19th Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE), at the No. 4 moraine, Grove Mountains, Antarctica. GRV 024237 consists mainly of coarse-grained olivine (60 vol%), pigeonite (30 vol%) and opaque minerals (10 vol%). Tri-junction texture between olivine and pigeonite is common. Carbonaceous materials with minor amounts of troilite and nickel-iron metal were observed as interstitial phases. The Fa value of olivine composition varies from 6.2 to 16.8 from rim to core, but pyroxene is homogeneous in composition, with Fs 14.0 to 15.5. Both olivine and pyroxene have normal extinctions. Net-like iron or limonite veins filled in the fractures of olivine and pyroxene, and no diamond was observed. Based on petrographic and mineralogical features, GRV 024237 is a Type I and Group 2 monomict ureilite

N-(4-hydroxyphenyl) retinamide inhibits migration of renal carcinoma cells and promotes autophagy via MAPK p38 pathway

Purpose: To investigate the effect of N-(4-hydroxyphenyl) retinamide (4HPR) on autophagy and migration of renal carcinoma cells.Methods: Renal cancer cell lines were treated with various concentrations of 4HPR. Proliferation of the cells was studied using 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltrazolium bromide (MTT), while apoptosis and cell cycle arrest were determined by flow cytometry.Results: Treatment of RCCs with 30 μM 4HPR caused significant inhibition of viability. In 786-O and OS-RC-2 cell lines, 4HPR reduced colony formation by 39 and 43 %, respectively. In addition, 4HPR increased the percentage of 786-O cells in G1 phase from 58.79 ± 3.43 to 71.68 ± 4.47 % (p < 0.05). It also decreased the percentage of cells in the S-phase from 21.98 ± 2.78 to 09.17 ± 1.43 %, and enhanced the activation of p38 and JNK in 786-O cells at 48 h. Western blot assay showed that the activation of p38 and JNK by 4HPR was inhibited on pre-treatment with SB203580 (inhibitor of p38) and SP600125 (inhibitor of JNK), respectively. Reduction of 786-O cell viability by 4HPR treatment was also significantly inhibited by pre-treatment with sp203580 and sp600125 (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the inhibitors also reversed the effect of 4HPR on the expressions of Bax and Bcl-2 in 786-O cells.Conclusion: These results indicate that 4HPR inhibits the growth of renal cancer cells via activation of MAPK signalling pathway. Thus, 4HPR is a potential drug target for management of renal cancer.Keywords: Retinamide, Renal cancer, Autophagy, MAPK signalling, Cell proliferation, N-terminal kinas

Weakly-Supervised Action Localization by Hierarchically-structured Latent Attention Modeling

Weakly-supervised action localization aims to recognize and localize action instancese in untrimmed videos with only video-level labels. Most existing models rely on multiple instance learning(MIL), where the predictions of unlabeled instances are supervised by classifying labeled bags. The MIL-based methods are relatively well studied with cogent performance achieved on classification but not on localization. Generally, they locate temporal regions by the video-level classification but overlook the temporal variations of feature semantics. To address this problem, we propose a novel attention-based hierarchically-structured latent model to learn the temporal variations of feature semantics. Specifically, our model entails two components, the first is an unsupervised change-points detection module that detects change-points by learning the latent representations of video features in a temporal hierarchy based on their rates of change, and the second is an attention-based classification model that selects the change-points of the foreground as the boundaries. To evaluate the effectiveness of our model, we conduct extensive experiments on two benchmark datasets, THUMOS-14 and ActivityNet-v1.3. The experiments show that our method outperforms current state-of-the-art methods, and even achieves comparable performance with fully-supervised methods.Comment: Accepted to ICCV 2023. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2203.15187, arXiv:2003.12424, arXiv:2104.02967 by other author

Fiber Surface/Interfacial Engineering on Wearable Electronics.

Funder: Henry Royce Institute for Advanced MaterialsSurface/interfacial engineering is an essential technique to explore the fiber materials properties and fulfil new functionalities. An extensive scope of current physical and chemical treating methods is reviewed here together with a variety of real-world applications. Moreover, a new surface/interface engineering approach is also introduced: self-assembly via π-π stacking, which has great potential for the surface modification of fiber materials due to its nondestructive working principle. A new fiber family member, metal-oxide framework (MOF) fiber shows promising candidacy for fiber based wearable electronics. The understanding of surface/interfacial engineering techniques on fiber materials is advanced here and it is expected to guide the rational design of future fiber based wearable electronics

Fiber Surface/Interfacial Engineering on Wearable Electronics

From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2021-05-18, rev-recd 2021-06-29, pub-electronic 2021-08-21Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedFunder: Henry Royce Institute for Advanced MaterialsFunder: EPSRC; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000266; Grant(s): EP/R00661X/1, EP/P025021/1, EP/P025498/1Funder: Short Research Visits UK Fluids Network; Grant(s): EP/N032861/1Abstract: Surface/interfacial engineering is an essential technique to explore the fiber materials properties and fulfil new functionalities. An extensive scope of current physical and chemical treating methods is reviewed here together with a variety of real‐world applications. Moreover, a new surface/interface engineering approach is also introduced: self‐assembly via π–π stacking, which has great potential for the surface modification of fiber materials due to its nondestructive working principle. A new fiber family member, metal‐oxide framework (MOF) fiber shows promising candidacy for fiber based wearable electronics. The understanding of surface/interfacial engineering techniques on fiber materials is advanced here and it is expected to guide the rational design of future fiber based wearable electronics

Dose-related liver injury of Geniposide associated with the alteration in bile acid synthesis and transportation.

Fructus Gardenia (FG), containing the major active constituent Geniposide, is widely used in China for medicinal purposes. Currently, clinical reports of FG toxicity have not been published, however, animal studies have shown FG or Geniposide can cause hepatotoxicity in rats. We investigated Geniposide-induced hepatic injury in male Sprague-Dawley rats after 3-day intragastric administration of 100 mg/kg or 300 mg/kg Geniposide. Changes in hepatic histomorphology, serum liver enzyme, serum and hepatic bile acid profiles, and hepatic bile acid synthesis and transportation gene expression were measured. The 300 mg/kg Geniposide caused liver injury evidenced by pathological changes and increases in serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and γ-glutamytransferase (γ-GT). While liver, but not sera, total bile acids (TBAs) were increased 75% by this dose, dominated by increases in taurine-conjugated bile acids (t-CBAs). The 300 mg/kg Geniposide also down-regulated expression of Farnesoid X receptor (FXR), small heterodimer partner (SHP) and bile salt export pump (BSEP). In conclusion, 300 mg/kg Geniposide can induce liver injury with associated changes in bile acid regulating genes, leading to an accumulation of taurine conjugates in the rat liver. Taurocholic acid (TCA), taurochenodeoxycholic acid (TCDCA) as well as tauro-α-muricholic acid (T-α-MCA) are potential markers for Geniposide-induced hepatic damage

Dynamic changes in fecal microbiota in donkey foals during weaning: From pre-weaning to post-weaning

IntroductionA better understanding of the microbiota community in donkey foals during the weaning transition is a prerequisite to optimize gut function and improve feed efficiency. The objective of the present study was to investigate the dynamic changes in fecal microbiota in donkey foals from pre-to post-weaning period.MethodsA total of 27 fecal samples of donkey foals were collected in the rectum before morning feeding at pre-weaning (30 days of age, PreW group, n = 9), dur-weaning (100 days of age, DurW group, n = 9) and post-weaning (170 days of age, PostW group, n = 9) period. The 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing were employed to indicate the microbial changes during the weaning period.ResultsIn the present study, the cessation of breastfeeding gradually and weaning onto plant-based feeds increased the microbial diversity and richness, with a higher Shannon, Ace, Chao and Sobs index in DurW and PostW than in PreW (p < 0.05). The predominant bacterial phyla in donkey foal feces were Firmicutes (>50.5%) and Bacteroidota (>29.5%), and the predominant anaerobic fungi and archaea were Neocallimastigomycota and Euryarchaeota. The cellulolytic related bacteria including phylum Firmicutes, Spirochaetota and Fibrobacterota and genus norank_f_F082, Treponema, NK4A214_group, Lachnospiraceae_AC2044_group and Streptococcus were increased from pre-to post-weaning donkey foals (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the functions related to the fatty acid biosynthesis, carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid biosynthesis were significantly enriched in the fecal microbiome in the DurW and PostW donkeys. Furthermore, the present study provided the first direct evidence that the initial colonization and establishment of anaerobic fungi and archaea in donkey foals began prior to weaning. The relative abundance of Orpinomyces were the highest in DurW donkey foals among the three groups (p < 0.01). In terms of archaea, the abundance of Methanobrevibacter were higher in PreW than in DurW and PostW (p < 0.01), but the abundance of Methanocorpusculum were significantly increased in DurW and PostW compared to PreW donkey foals (p < 0.01).DiscussionAltogether, the current study contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the development of the microbiota community in donkey foals from pre-to post-weaning period, which may eventually result in an improvement of the digestion and feed efficiency in donkeys

MTHFR Gene Polymorphism Association With Psoriatic Arthritis Risk and the Efficacy and Hepatotoxicity of Methotrexate in Psoriasis.

Aims To assess whether MTHFR rs1801131 and rs1801133 SNPs are associated with concomitant psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and investigate the efficacy and hepatotoxicity of MTX in patients with psoriasis in the Han Chinese population. Methods This prospective, single-arm, interventional study recruited a total of 309 patients with psoriasis, 163 with psoriatic arthritis and 146 without psoriatic arthritis, who completed a 12-week MTX treatment and 1,031 healthy controls. Patients' characteristics including age, gender, disease duration, height, weight, smoking status, alcohol consumption, medical history, disease severity and liver function test results were accessed and recorded. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping of rs1801131 and rs1801133 in the MTHFR gene was performed. Results The rs1801133 CC genotype was more frequent in patients with PsA than those with PsO and healthy controls (42.3% vs. 28.8% vs. 33.1%, p < 0.05). The 90% reduction from baseline PASI score (PASI 90) response rates to MTX were significantly higher in patients with the rs1801133 TT genotype than those with the CT and CC genotype (33.96% vs. 19.31% vs. 14.41%, OR = 2.76, p = 0.006). The rs1801133 CT+TT genotype was more frequent in PsA patients with abnormal liver function than in those with normal liver function (p < 0.05). In addition, patients with the rs1801131 CT genotype had lower PASI 75 response rates to MTX (OR = 0.49, p = 0.01), and lower risk of ALT elevation (OR = 0.46, p = 0.04). Conclusions This study provided some evidence for MTHFR polymorphism association with the risk of PsA and the efficacy and hepatotoxicity of the low-dose MTX in the Chinese population. Given the relatively small sample size and potentially missed diagnosis of PsA, the results from this study warrant further investigation