Cooperative Acoustic Navigation Scheme for Heterogenous Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

International audienceCooperative Acoustic Navigation Scheme for Heterogenous Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Limitations of Keratoplasty in China: A Survey Analysis

Purpose Each year, over 8,000 corneal transplantation surgeries are performed in China. Unlike developed countries, which have established standard requirements for operative experience for corneal specialists, little information exists on surgical training for keratoplasty in China. The aim of this study was to assess the keratoplasty experience of Chinese corneal specialists and to characterize their surgical patterns. Methods: One hundred and twenty-one corneal specialists in 16 provinces (65 cities) in China were invited to complete an anonymous survey at the 2014 Chinese Corneal Society annual meeting, which consisted of questions with single or multiple-choice answers. Demographics, the number and type of keratoplasties performed, and the perceived limiting factors for performing keratoplasties were analyzed. Results: An overwhelming 89% response rate was achieved. Of the 108 respondents, 76% worked in tertiary centers, and only 23% held a medical doctorate degree. Furthermore, 69% of the participants had received corneal fellowship training of less than one year. Only 71% were capable of keratoplasties. Among those doing keratoplasty, 68% performed less than 50 keratoplasties each year. Of the same group of keratoplasty surgeons, 88% of corneal specialists capable of keratoplasties had performed penetrating keratoplasties, 87% had performed lamellar keratoplasties, 12% had performed deep anterior lamellar keratoplasties, and 5% had performed Descemet’s stripping endothelial keratoplasties. When questioned on the reasons for the low number of keratoplasties performed in China, the respondents deemed the following factors most important: lack of surgical training (71%), a shortage of donor supply (52%), and a lack of curricula (42%). A multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that corneal transplantation capabilities are significantly associated with responders’ education levels and training time. Conclusion: Keratoplasty surgery experience is suboptimal for Chinese corneal specialists. Penetrating and lamellar keratoplasties are the preferred surgical patterns. Our findings raise concerns about the adequacy of keratoplasty training in China

DTCM: Deep Transformer Capsule Mutual Distillation for Multivariate Time Series Classification

This paper proposes a dual-network-based feature extractor, perceptive capsule network (PCapN), for multivariate time series classification (MTSC), including a local feature network (LFN) and a global relation network (GRN). The LFN has two heads (i.e., Head_A and Head_B), each containing two squash CNN blocks and one dynamic routing block to extract the local features from the data and mine the connections among them. The GRN consists of two capsule-based transformer blocks and one dynamic routing block to capture the global patterns of each variable and correlate the useful information of multiple variables. Unfortunately, it is difficult to directly deploy PCapN on mobile devices due to its strict requirement for computing resources. So, this paper designs a lightweight capsule network (LCapN) to mimic the cumbersome PCapN. To promote knowledge transfer from PCapN to LCapN, this paper proposes a deep transformer capsule mutual (DTCM) distillation method. It is targeted and offline, using one- and two-way operations to supervise the knowledge distillation process for the dual-network-based student and teacher models. Experimental results show that the proposed PCapN and DTCM achieve excellent performance on UEA2018 datasets regarding top-1 accuracy

Role of Na/H exchange in insulin secretion by islet cells

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Sodium/hydrogen exchangers (NHEs) are a large family of transport proteins catalyzing the exchange of cations for protons across lipid bilayer membranes. Several isoforms are expressed in β cells of the endocrine pancreas, including the recently discovered and poorly characterized isoform NHA2. This review will summarize advances in our understanding of the roles of NHEs in the regulation of insulin secretion in β cells. RECENT FINDINGS: Plasmalemmal full-length NHE1 defends β cells from intracellular acidification, but has no role in stimulus-secretion coupling and is not causally involved in glucose-induced alkalinization of the β cell. The function of a shorter NHE1 splice variant, which localizes to insulin-containing large dense core vesicles, remains currently unknown. In contrast, in-vitro and in-vivo studies indicate that the NHA2 isoform is required for insulin secretion and clathrin-mediated endocytosis in β cells. SUMMARY: Recent data highlight the importance of NHEs in the regulation of cellular pH, clathrin-mediated endocytosis and insulin secretion in β cells. Based on these studies, a pathophysiological role of NHEs in human disorders of the endocrine pancreas seems likely and should be investigated

The Cause and Evolution of Urban Street Vitality under the Time Dimension: Nine Cases of Streets in Nanjing City, China

Street vitality is associated with a comfortable human-based public environment and urban sustainability. In most current studies, street vitality is assessed considering single or multi factors; however, the impact of time dimension is ignored. This study selects nine different year-built streets in old, main, and new urban areas, in Nanjing, China, proposes a framework to assess street vitality considering the different time dimensions and selects the following factors: street form, including building density, continuity, and height-width; street business type, including store density, function density, and permeation rate; and street accessibility, including location, the number of entrances/exits, transportation, and walkability. After calculating the values of the subfactors, a ranking method was applied to assign the ranking of impact of all factors for a comprehensive analysis. The results showed that Pipa Street, Wufu Street in a main urban area, and Hongmiao Street had the highest street vitality and the highest rankings of almost all the factors. Street vitality in different periods demonstrated that street vitality in new urban areas is lower compared with old and main urban areas

Characterization of the complete chloroplast genome sequence of Cardamine lyrata Bunge(Brassicaceae)

Cardamine lyrata Bunge 1833 grows near paddy fields, streams and shallow water. Its young stems and leaves can be eaten. It can also be used as medicine and has the effect of clearing away heat and dampness. The complete chloroplast genome sequence of the C. lyrata was determined and assembled. The complete genome is 155,170 bp in length, including a large single-copy region (LSC) of 84,270 bp, a small single-copy region (SSC) of 17,918 bp and two copies of inverted repeat (IR) regions of 26,491 bp. The overall GC content of C. lyrata is 36.2%. The genome of C. lyrata contains 131 genes, including 85 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 37 tRNAs, and 8 rRNAs. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that the ten species in Cardamine were clustered together into a single branch within the Brassicaceae family and C. amariformis is at the base of the tree and C. lyrata and C. fallax are sister groups of the inner clade

Supply chain finance: a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

Supply Chain Finance (SCF) is an effective method to lower financing costs and improve financing efficiency and effectiveness, and it has gained research momentum in recent years. This paper adopts a systematic literature review methodology combined with bibliometric, network and content analysis based on 348 papers identified from mainstream academic databases. This review provides insights not previously fully captured or evaluated by other reviews on this topic, including key authors, key journals and the prestige of the reviewed papers. Using rigorous bibliometric and visualisation tools, we identified four research clusters, including deteriorating inventory models under trade credit policy based on the EOQ/EPQ model; inventory decisions with trade credit policy under more complex situations; interaction between replenishment decisions and delay payment strategies in the supply chain and roles of financing service in the supply chain. Based on the clusters identified, we carried out a further content analysis of 112 papers, identifying research gaps and proposing seven actionable directions for future research. The findings provide a robust roadmap for further investigation in this field

Aging of Polymeric Insulators under Various Conditions and Environments: Another Look

Polymeric insulators have lightweight, excellent hydrophobicity and convenient transportation and installation. They are widely used in the external insulation for distribution and transmission lines. However, due to the long-term effects of pollution, ultraviolet radiation, discharge, temperature, humidity, altitude and other natural and complex environmental and service factors, the silicone rubber and other materials of polymeric insulators gradually age and lose their hydrophobicity and electrical insulation characteristics. The operability is significantly reduced, which seriously affects the safety and reliability of the power system. Hence, there is a need for assessing and evaluating the long-term aging and degradation of polymeric insulators under various operating conditions and environments. In this review, the various aging and characterization techniques of the polymeric insulators and their aging performance under the action of multiple factors are discussed. To enhance the performance of polymeric insulators, nano-coating, surface treatment and other techniques are also indicated. In addition, future potential fields that should be explored from a high-voltage electrical insulation perspective are also presented

Impact of conjunctivochalasis on visual quality of life: a community population survey.

Conjunctivochalasis (Cch) is a very common ocular disorder, which can cause an unstable tear film and ocular discomfort. The study of vision-related quality of life (VR-QoL) in a community population with Cch can provide a better understanding of the impact of Cch on common people than objective clinical examinations alone. This cross-sectional comparative study enrolled 360 participants ≥ 40 years old living in Sanle Community, Shanghai. In the study, 198 subjects were diagnosed with Cch and 86 with dry eye syndrome (DES) without Cch. The remaining 76 subjects were normal controls. Socio-demographical data were collected, and Cch and related ocular symptoms and signs were evaluated. In addition, all participants were required to complete the Chinese version of the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25) and Ocular Surface Disease Index Questionnaire (OSDI). Main outcome measures include the comparison on the OSDI score and VFQ-25 score among the subgroups, and the correlation of these scores with the socio-demographical and clinical data. The results revealed that subjects with Cch had significantly decreased tear film stability even compared with those with DES (P = 0.001). The participants with either Cch or DES reported significantly higher OSDI scores and lower VFQ-25 composite scores than the normal controls (P<0.001 and 0.007 respectively). Further comparisons among the subgroups of Cch revealed that the following factors were associated with higher OSDI scores and lower VFQ-25 composite scores: nasal-side Cch, chalasis folds higher than tear meniscus height, punctal occlusion, or increased extent of chalasis on digital pressure. In conclusion, Cch was associated with an adverse impact on VR-QoL in a community population, and the impairment in VR-QoL had a significant correlation with disease severity and tear film abnormalities