324 research outputs found
DESIGN OF PSYCHOLOGICAL NURSING SATISFACTION SCORING SYSTEM FOR ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH DEPRESSION
Denoising Diffusion Semantic Segmentation with Mask Prior Modeling
The evolution of semantic segmentation has long been dominated by learning
more discriminative image representations for classifying each pixel. Despite
the prominent advancements, the priors of segmentation masks themselves, e.g.,
geometric and semantic constraints, are still under-explored. In this paper, we
propose to ameliorate the semantic segmentation quality of existing
discriminative approaches with a mask prior modeled by a recently-developed
denoising diffusion generative model. Beginning with a unified architecture
that adapts diffusion models for mask prior modeling, we focus this work on a
specific instantiation with discrete diffusion and identify a variety of key
design choices for its successful application. Our exploratory analysis
revealed several important findings, including: (1) a simple integration of
diffusion models into semantic segmentation is not sufficient, and a
poorly-designed diffusion process might lead to degradation in segmentation
performance; (2) during the training, the object to which noise is added is
more important than the type of noise; (3) during the inference, the strict
diffusion denoising scheme may not be essential and can be relaxed to a simpler
scheme that even works better. We evaluate the proposed prior modeling with
several off-the-shelf segmentors, and our experimental results on ADE20K and
Cityscapes demonstrate that our approach could achieve competitively
quantitative performance and more appealing visual quality
Back to the Starting Point: on the Simulation of Initial Magnetic Fields and Spin Periods of Non-accretion Pulsars
Neutron stars (NSs) play essential roles in modern astrophysics. Magnetic
fields and spin periods of newborn (zero age) NSs have large impact on the
further evolution of NSs, which are however poorly explored in observation due
to the difficulty of finding newborn NSs. In this work, we aim to infer the
magnetic fields and spin periods (Bi and Pi) of zero-age NSs from the observed
properties of NS population. We select non-accretion NSs (NANSs) whose
evolution is solely determined by magnetic dipole radiation. We find that both
Bi and Pi can be described by log-normal distribution and the fitting
sensitively depends on our parameters.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Parasitic antigens alter macrophage polarization during Schistosoma japonicum infection in mice
Dynamics of Th17 Cells and Their Role in Schistosoma japonicum Infection in C57BL/6 Mice
Th17 immune cells secrete the IL-17 cytokine and contribute to host defenses against certain infections. Recent studies linked IL-17 with the severity of liver inflammation and suggested that Th17 cells contribute to the pathology in schistosomiasis, a serious disease caused by parasitic worms such as Schistosoma japonicum widespread in vertebrates including humans. However, the role of Th17 cells in protection against S. japonicum infection is still unclear. For the first time, we describe here the changes in Th17 cell levels during S. japonicum infection and suggest that the schistosome egg antigens are primarily responsible for stimulating the generation of host Th17 cells after S. japonicum infection. We further show that the level of Th17 cells in the host is determined by a combination of factors, namely exposure to complex parasitic antigens that either induce or suppress their generation. We also suggest that lowering IL-17 levels may favor the host's protective responses against S. japonicum infection. Our findings help to better understand the relationship between the host and parasite in terms of immune protection and pathology in schistosomiasis and may contribute to the future development of vaccination and therapeutic strategies
Case report: Levodopa-responsive parkinsonism with akinetic mutism after ventriculo-peritoneal shunt
BackgroundParkinsonism and akinetic mutism (AM) following ventriculo-peritoneal shunt (VPS) without underdrainage used to be considered rare, but may be underdiagnosed in daily clinical practice. Although the pathophysiology is still unclear, in several case reports, the parkinsonism and AM after VPS shows responsiveness to dopaminergic treatment.Case presentationWe report a 19-year-old male that presented with severe parkinsonism and AM after VPS. Meanwhile, 18F-FDG-PET showed a cortical and subcortical hypometabolism. Fortunately, levodopa dramatically improved patient's symptoms and brain hypometabolism. This report provides support for the possibility that dopamine deficiency inhibits brain metabolism, and further elucidates the pathogenesis of parkinsonism and AM.ConclusionThis report highlights the presentation of a treatable parkinsonism and points out that Levodopa and/or dopamine agonist should be the first choice if the patients develop parkinson-like symptoms after VPS
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Beneficial Effect of Young Oocytes for Rabbit Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
Abstract This study was designed to examine the effect of the age of rabbit oocytes on the developmental potential of cloned embryos. The metaphase II oocytes used for nuclear transfer (NT) were collected at 10, 12, 14, and 16h post-hCG injection (hpi). The total number of oocytes collected per donor (21.4-23.7) at 12 to 16 hpi was similar, but significantly higher than that collected at 10 hpi (16.2). Additionally, a significant improvement in blastocyst development was achieved with embryos generated by electrically mediated cell fusion (56.0%), compared to those from nuclear injection (13.1 %) (Experiment 1). Markedly higher blastocyst development (45.8-54.5%) was also achieved with oocytes collected at 10-12 hpi than from those collected 14-16 hpi (8.3-14.3%) (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, the blastocyst rates of NT embryos derived from oocytes harvested 12 hpi (39.2-42.8 %) were significantly higher than from those collected at 16 hpi (6.8-8.4 %) (p<0.05), regardless of the donor cell age. Kinase activity assays showed variable changes of activity in rabbit oocytes over the period of 10-16 hpi; however, there was no correlation with preimplantational development (blastocyst rate vs. MPF, R=0.326; blastocyst rate vs. MAPK, R=0.131). Embryo transfer of NT embryos utilizing 12 hpi oocytes resulted in one full-term but stillborn, and one live cloned rabbit; thus, an efficiency of 1.7 % (n=117) (Experiment 4). These results demonstrated that NT utilizing relatively young rabbit oocytes, harvested at 10-12h after hCG injection, was beneficial for the development of NT embryos.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78139/1/clo.2008.0042.pd
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