Distribution Characteristics of Geo-hazards in a Reservoir Area, South Gansu Province, China

233-240In the process of water storage, due to water level fluctuations and base level erosion, reservoirs also play an important role in the occurrence of geological disasters. Taking a reservoir valley type in South Gansu Province, China as a case study, we investigated in depth the development and distribution of geological hazards and their influencing factors. The geological environment had changed considerably after reservoir impoundment with an increase in geological disasters. Furthermore, the main types of geological disasters were also analyzed systematically. Slope angle, altitude, slope aspect, proximity to earthquake faults, reservoir water storage, slope body structure, rock mass structure, and their combination features influenced the development and distribution of geological disasters in reservoir area. Close proximity to rivers also increases the likelihood of geological disasters. Landslides and collapses are closely related to the geo-hazards and their triggers include earthquakes, torrential rainfall, and fluctuations in reservoir water level. We also identified 2 types of debris which flow into the reservoir: gulch development and slope liquefaction

A Study of Test Suite Reduction Based on Ant Lion Optimizer

The development of smart meters to Internet of Things is the infrastructure for the Internet to carry out user electricity management and enhance user experience with electricity. As the iteration of smart home service system based on smart meters continues to accelerate, the development process is becoming more and more demanding for software testing. Test suite reduction is one of the common methods to improve the efficiency of software testing. In this paper, we proposed an optimization algorithm based on the Ant Lion Optimizer applied to test suite reduction problem of smart IoT meters. The algorithm improved the traditional Ant Lion Optimizer by converting the smart IoT meter test suite reduction problem into a binary coverage problem and combining the Greedy Algorithm to obtain the optimal test case subset. The experimental results showed that the algorithm based on Ant Lion Optimizer performed better on the test suite reduction problems compared to similar algorithms

Test Case Prioritization Based on Artificial Immune Algorithm

Regression testing is an essential and critical part of smart terminal program development. The test case suite is usually preprocessed by test case prioritization technology to improve the efficiency of regression testing. To address the problems of traditional genetic algorithm in solving the test case prioritization problem, this paper proposed a test case prioritization algorithm for intelligent terminal based on artificial immune algorithm. Firstly, different sequences of test case sets were used as the encoding of antibodies to initialize the antibody population; secondly, the Hemming distance was introduced as the concentration index of antibodies to calculate the incentive degree; finally, the antibodies were immunized to find the optimal test case set sequence. The experimental results showed that the algorithm based on the artificial immune algorithm was more capable of global search and less likely to fall into local optimum than the genetic algorithm, which indicated that the artificial immune algorithm was more stable and could better solve the test case prioritization problem

Epithelium percentage estimation facilitates epithelial quantitative protein measurement in tissue specimens

Background The rapid advancement of high-throughput tools for quantitative measurement of proteins has demonstrated the potential for the identification of proteins associated with cancer. However, the quantitative results on cancer tissue specimens are usually confounded by tissue heterogeneity, e.g. regions with cancer usually have significantly higher epithelium content yet lower stromal content. Objective It is therefore necessary to develop a tool to facilitate the interpretation of the results of protein measurements in tissue specimens. Methods Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) and cathepsin L (CTSL) are two epithelial proteins whose expressions in normal and tumorous prostate tissues were confirmed by measuring staining intensity with immunohistochemical staining (IHC). The expressions of these proteins were measured by ELISA in protein extracts from OCT embedded frozen prostate tissues. To eliminate the influence of tissue heterogeneity on epithelial protein quantification measured by ELISA, a color-based segmentation method was developed in-house for estimation of epithelium content using H&E histology slides from the same prostate tissues and the estimated epithelium percentage was used to normalize the ELISA results. The epithelium contents of the same slides were also estimated by a pathologist and used to normalize the ELISA results. The computer based results were compared with the pathologist’s reading. Results We found that both EpCAM and CTSL levels, measured by ELISA assays itself, were greatly affected by epithelium content in the tissue specimens. Without adjusting for epithelium percentage, both EpCAM and CTSL levels appeared significantly higher in tumor tissues than normal tissues with a p value less than 0.001. However, after normalization by the epithelium percentage, ELISA measurements of both EpCAM and CTSL were in agreement with IHC staining results, showing a significant increase only in EpCAM with no difference in CTSL expression in cancer tissues. These results were obtained with normalization by both the computer estimated and pathologist estimated epithelium percentage. Conclusions Our results show that estimation of tissue epithelium percentage using our color-based segmentation method correlates well with pathologists' estimation of tissue epithelium percentages. The epithelium contents estimated by color-based segmentation may be useful in immuno-based analysis or clinical proteomic analysis of tumor proteins. The codes used for epithelium estimation as well as the micrographs with estimated epithelium content are available online.BioMed Central open acces

O-PRESS: Boosting OCT axial resolution with Prior guidance, Recurrence, and Equivariant Self-Supervision

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a noninvasive technology that enables real-time imaging of tissue microanatomies. The axial resolution of OCT is intrinsically constrained by the spectral bandwidth of the employed light source while maintaining a fixed center wavelength for a specific application. Physically extending this bandwidth faces strong limitations and requires a substantial cost. We present a novel computational approach, called as O-PRESS, for boosting the axial resolution of OCT with Prior Guidance, a Recurrent mechanism, and Equivariant Self-Supervision. Diverging from conventional superresolution methods that rely on physical models or data-driven techniques, our method seamlessly integrates OCT modeling and deep learning, enabling us to achieve real-time axial-resolution enhancement exclusively from measurements without a need for paired images. Our approach solves two primary tasks of resolution enhancement and noise reduction with one treatment. Both tasks are executed in a self-supervised manner, with equivariance imaging and free space priors guiding their respective processes. Experimental evaluations, encompassing both quantitative metrics and visual assessments, consistently verify the efficacy and superiority of our approach, which exhibits performance on par with fully supervised methods. Importantly, the robustness of our model is affirmed, showcasing its dual capability to enhance axial resolution while concurrently improving the signal-to-noise ratio

Regional Cerebral Blood Flow in Mania: Assessment Using 320-Slice Computed Tomography

Objectives: While evidence that episodes of mania in bipolar I are associated with changes in bioenergetic and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and cerebral blood flow velocity (rCBFV), both the regions and the extent of these changes have not yet been defined. Therefore, we determined the pattern of regional cerebral perfusion mania patients and using patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) as positive controls and healthy participants as negative controls.Methods: Twenty participants with mania, together with 22 MDD patients and 24 healthy volunteers, were recruited for this study. On all participants, Transcranial Doppler (TCD) was conducted to measure rCBFV parameters, 320-slice CT was conducted to measure rCBF in the different cerebral artery regions, and hematological parameters were assessed. ANOVA and Pearson's tests were used for the statistical analysis.Results: Our data indicated that rCBF in the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus, especially in the left medial temporal lobe and the right hippocampus, was increased in the mania group compared with the control and MDD groups (p < 0.01). In contrast, rCBF in the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus was decreased in the depression group (p < 0.01) compared with healthy controls. In addition, values of rCBFV in the bilateral internal carotid arteries (ICAs) and middle cerebral arteries (MCA) were increased in mania (p < 0.01) in comparison to the MDD group. Whole blood viscosity and hematocrit as well as red blood cell sedimentation rate remained unchanged in all group (p > 0.05).Conclusions: In mania, rCBF is increased in the medial temporal lobe and hippocampus, with a corresponding increase in rCBFV in the same regions

Effect of Irradiation and/or Leucocyte Filtration on RBC Storage Lesions

Red blood cell (RBC) storage lesions have been shown to be associated with some adverse reactions; numerous studies have focused on the lesions caused by storage, and few data on the RBC storage lesions caused by prestorage treatments of leucocyte filtration and irradiation. In this study, we examined the changes related with the RBC storage lesions, including 2,3-diphosphatidylglyceric acid (2,3-DPG), pH, free hemoglobin (Hb), supernatant free K+ and Na+ concentration, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH). Along with the increasing storage time, decreases in 2, 3-DPG levels, pH and Na+ concentration, increases in K+ and free Hb concentrations, and significant morphological changes in RBC in all groups were found. The changes in the groups of irradiation, leucocyte filtration and the combined irradiation and leucocyte filtration were more significant than those in the untreated group. Meanwhile, the MCV levels of the three treated groups were significantly lower than those in the untreated group, while the MCH variations were significantly higher. Our results suggest that irradiation and leucocyte filtration before storage may aggravate blood storage lesions

Altered cardiac autonomic nervous function in depression

Background:Depression is an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease. Autonomic instability may play a mediating or moderating role in this relationship; however this is not well understood. The objective of this study was to explore cardiac autonomic function and cardiac arrhythmia in depression, the correlation between depression severity and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) related indices, and the prevalence of arrhythmia.Methods:Individuals (n = 53) with major depression as assessed by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, who had a Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD) score ≥20 and a Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale score > 53 were compared to 53 healthy individuals, matched for age and gender. Multichannel Electrocardiograph ECG-92C data were collected over 24 hours. Long-term changes in HRV were used to assess the following vagally mediated changes in autonomic tone, expressed as time domain indices: Standard deviation of the NN intervals (SDNN), standard deviation of 5 min averaged NN intervals (SDANN), Root Mean Square of the Successive Differences (RMSSD) and percentage of NN intervals > 50 ms different from preceding interval (pNN50). Pearson’s correlations were conducted to explore the strength of the association between depression severity (using the SDS and HRV related indices, specifically SDNN and low frequency domain / high frequency domain (LF/HF)).Results:The values of SDNN, SDANN, RMSSD, PNN50 and HF were lower in the depression group compared to the control group (P<.05). The mean value of the LF in the depression group was higher than the in control group (P<.05). Furthermore the ratio of LF/HF was higher among the depression group than the control group (P<.05). A linear relationship was shown to exist between the severity of the depression and HRV indices. In the depression group, the prevalence of arrhythmia was significantly higher than in the control group (P<.05), particularly supraventricular arrhythmias.Conclusions:Our findings suggest that depression is accompanied by dysfunction of the cardiac autonomic nervous system, and further, that depression severity is linked to severity of this dysfunction. Individuals with depression appear to be susceptible to premature atrial and/or ventricular disease