RVSL: Robust Vehicle Similarity Learning in Real Hazy Scenes Based on Semi-supervised Learning

Recently, vehicle similarity learning, also called re-identification (ReID), has attracted significant attention in computer vision. Several algorithms have been developed and obtained considerable success. However, most existing methods have unpleasant performance in the hazy scenario due to poor visibility. Though some strategies are possible to resolve this problem, they still have room to be improved due to the limited performance in real-world scenarios and the lack of real-world clear ground truth. Thus, to resolve this problem, inspired by CycleGAN, we construct a training paradigm called \textbf{RVSL} which integrates ReID and domain transformation techniques. The network is trained on semi-supervised fashion and does not require to employ the ID labels and the corresponding clear ground truths to learn hazy vehicle ReID mission in the real-world haze scenes. To further constrain the unsupervised learning process effectively, several losses are developed. Experimental results on synthetic and real-world datasets indicate that the proposed method can achieve state-of-the-art performance on hazy vehicle ReID problems. It is worth mentioning that although the proposed method is trained without real-world label information, it can achieve competitive performance compared to existing supervised methods trained on complete label information.Comment: Accepted by ECCV 202

Persistent surgical wound bleeding: A rare condition related to acquired hemophilia A

SummaryAcquired hemophilia A (AHA) is a rare condition that predisposes affected patients to a bleeding tendency, even after a trivial physical insult. We present our experience with a 45-year-old male patient who was referred to our institute because of persistent bleeding from a left forearm surgical wound after fasciotomy. He was diagnosed as having AHA. Surgical treatment in combination with recombinant activated factor VII (rFVIIa) led to a satisfactory result. Clinical awareness and multidisciplinary professional connections are necessary in the treatment of AHA. Acquired hemophilia should be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients with uncontrolled bleeding episodes

Transcriptomic analyses of regenerating adult feathers in chicken

Transcriptome Expression Data. Table of mapped reads to Galgal4 transcripts for all 15 data sets. FPKM (Fragments per kilobase of exon per million fragments mapped): normalized transcript abundance values for each gene in the indicated tissues. (CSV 1314 kb

A Granulation Tissue Detection Model to Track Chronic Wound Healing in DM Foot Ulcers

Diabetes mellitus (DM) foot ulcer is a chronic wound and is highly related to the mortality and morbidity of infection, and might induce sepsis and foot amputation, especially during the isolation stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Visual observation when changing dressings is the most common and traditional method of detecting wound healing. The formation of granulation tissues plays an important role in wound healing. In the complex pathophysiology of excess and unhealthy granulation induced by infection, oxygen supply may explain the wound healing process in DM patients with multiple complicated wounds. Thus, advanced and useful tools to observe the condition of wound healing are very important for DM patients with extremities ulcers. For this purpose, we developed an artificial intelligence (AI) detection model to identify the growth of granulation tissue of the wound bed. We recruited 100 patients to provide 219 images of wounds at different healing stages from 2 hospitals. This was performed to understand the wound images of inconsistent size, and to allow self-inspection on mobile devices, having limited computing resources. We segmented those images into 32 × 32 blocks and used a reduced ResNet-18 model to test them individually. Furthermore, we conducted a learning method of active learning to improve the efficiency of model training. Experimental results reveal that our model can identify the region of granulation tissue with an Intersection-over-Union (IOU) rate higher than 0.5 compared to the ground truth. Multiple cross-repetitive validations also confirm that the detection results of our model may serve as an auxiliary indicator for assessing the progress of wound healing. The preliminary findings may help to identify the granulation tissue of patients with DM foot ulcer, which may lead to better long-term home care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The current limit of our model is an IOU of about 0.6. If more actual data are available, the IOU is expected to improve. We can continue to use the currently established active learning process for subsequent training

1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)-Based Cerebrospinal Fluid and Plasma Metabolomic Analysis in Type 2 Diabetic Patients and Risk Prediction for Diabetic Microangiopathy

Insulin resistance and metabolic derangement are present in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, the metabolomic signature of T2DM in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) has not been investigated thus far. In this prospective metabolomic study, fasting CSF and plasma samples from 40 T2DM patients to 36 control subjects undergoing elective surgery with spinal anesthesia were analyzed by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. NMR spectra of CSF and plasma metabolites were analyzed and correlated with the presence of T2DM and diabetic microangiopathy (retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy) using an area under the curve (AUC) estimation. CSF metabolomic profiles in T2DM patients vs. controls revealed significantly increased levels of alanine, leucine, valine, tyrosine, lactate, pyruvate, and decreased levels of histidine. In addition, a combination of alanine, histidine, leucine, pyruvate, tyrosine, and valine in CSF showed a superior correlation with the presence of T2DM (AUC:0.951), diabetic retinopathy (AUC:0.858), nephropathy (AUC:0.811), and neuropathy (AUC:0.691). Similar correlations also appeared in plasma profiling. These metabolic alterations in CSF suggest decreasing aerobic metabolism and increasing anaerobic glycolysis in cerebral circulation of patients with T2DM. In conclusion, our results provide clues for the metabolic derangements in diabetic central neuropathy among T2DM patients; however, their clinical significance requires further exploration

Prognostic factors for Taiwanese patients with cutaneous melanoma undergoing sentinel lymph node biopsy

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) is a standard procedure in the management of clinically node-negative melanoma. However, few studies have been performed on SLNB in Asia, which is an acral melanoma-prevalent area. This study evaluated the clinicopathologic prognostic factors of disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in Taiwanese patients with cutaneous melanoma who received wide excision and SLNB. The prognosis of patients with false-negative (FN) SLNB was also evaluated. Methods: Malignant melanoma cases were reviewed for 518 patients who were treated between January 2000 and December 2011. Of these patients, 127 patients with node-negative cutaneous melanoma who received successful SLNB were eligible for inclusion in the study. Results: The SLNB-positive rate was 34.6%. The median DFS was 51.5 months, and the median OS was 90.9 months at the median follow-up of 36.6 months. Multivariate analysis revealed that patients whose melanoma had a Breslow thickness greater than 2 mm had a significantly shorter DFS than patients whose melanoma had a Breslow thickness of 2 mm or less [hazard ratio (HR), 3.421; p = 0.005]. Independent prognostic factors of OS were a Breslow thickness greater than 2 mm (HR, 4.435; p = 0.002); nonacral melanoma (HR, 3.048; p = 0.001); and an age older than 65 years (HR, 2.819; p = 0.036). During the follow-up period, 13 of 83 SLN-negative patients developed a regional nodal recurrence. The SLNB failure rate was 15.7% and the FN rate was 22.8%. Compared to patients with a true-positive SLNB, patients with FN SLNB had a significantly shorter DFS (p = 0.001) but no significant difference in OS (p = 0.262). Conclusion: Except for the pathologic subtypes, prognostic factors in Taiwan are similar to those used in other melanoma-prevalent countries. Identifying and closely monitoring patients at risk of nodal recurrence after a negative SLNB is important

Associations of cigarette smoking and burden of thoracic aortic calcification in asymptomatic individuals: A dose-response relationship.

Smoking is known as a powerful predictor of pathological coronary atherosclerosis. Thoracic aortic calcification (TAC), an alternative marker for pathological atherosclerosis, has also been shown to be associated unfavorable cardiovascular outcomes. We aimed to investigate the dose-response relationship between cigarette use and calcification burden in subjects free from clinical symptoms. Among 3109 patients enrolled in this analysis, we categorized study participants according to smoking exposure pattern as: non-smokers, ex-smokers and current smokers. Smoking dose (cigarette/day), duration (years) and pack-years were semi-quantified as smoking dose exposure variables. Thoracic aortic calcification burden (including TAC score, plaque volume and plaque density) were determined and related to smoking dose and pattern information. TAC burdens (including TAC score, plaque volume and density) were highest in current smoker compared to non-smoker group, with ex-smoker showing TAC burdens in-between (all ANOVA p 10 cigarettes/day) and the long-duration (> 3 years) smokers, even after adjusting for baseline demographic differences (all p<0.05). By logistic regression, subjects who never smoke consistently demonstrated reduced risk of TAC existence (adjusted OR: 0.65 [95% CI: 0.48-0.86], P = 0.003) in contrary to those current smokers (adjusted OR: 1.47 [95% CI: 1.10-1.89], P = 0.009). A dose-response relationship between active cigarette use and TAC burden was observed, with those who never exposed to smoking or quitted demonstrating partial protective effects. Our data provided imaging-based evidence about the potential deleterious biological hazards of long-term and high-dose cigarette consumption

Bulletin municipal officiel de la ville de Paris. Délibérations des assemblées de la Ville de Paris et du Département de la Seine. Conseil municipal de Paris

19 février 19541954/02/19 (N26,A74)