Creating and Transforming a Second-Rank Antisymmetric Field- Strength Tensor F αβ in Minkowski Space using MATHEMATICA

As the laws of physics are expressed in a manner that makes their invariance under coordinate transformations manifest, they should be written in terms of tensors. Furthermore, tensors make manifest the characteristics and behaviors of electromagnetic fields through inhomogeneous, anisotropic, and compressible media. Electromagnetic fields are expressed completely in tensor form, Fαβ, which implies both electric field E and magnetic field B rather than separately in the vector fields. This study presents the Mathematica platform that generates and transforms a second-rank antisymmetric field-strength tensor Fαβ and whiskbroom pattern in Minkowski space. The platforms enhance the capabilities of students and researchers in tensor analysis and improves comprehension of the elegant features of complete structure in physics

Autologous collagen-induced chondrogenesis: From bench to clinical development

Microfracture is a common technique that uses bone marrow components to stimulate cartilage regeneration. However, the clinical results of microfracture range from poor to good. To enhance cartilage healing, several reinforcing techniques have been developed, including porcine-derived collagen scaffold, hyaluronic acid, and chitosan. Autologous collagen-induced chondrogenesis (ACIC) is a single-step surgical technique for cartilage regeneration that combines gel-type atelocollagen scaffolding with microfracture. Even though ACIC is a relatively new technique, literature show excellent clinical results. In addition, all procedures of ACIC are performed arthroscopically, which is increasing in preference among surgeons and patients. The ACIC technique also is called the Shetty–Kim technique because it was developed from the works of A.A. Shetty and S.J. Kim. This is an up-to-date review of the history of ACIC

Localization Uncertainty Estimation for Anchor-Free Object Detection

Since many safety-critical systems, such as surgical robots and autonomous driving cars, are in unstable environments with sensor noise and incomplete data, it is desirable for object detectors to take into account the confidence of localization prediction. There are three limitations of the prior uncertainty estimation methods for anchor-based object detection. 1) They model the uncertainty based on object properties having different characteristics, such as location (center point) and scale (width, height). 2) they model a box offset and ground-truth as Gaussian distribution and Dirac delta distribution, which leads to the model misspecification problem. Because the Dirac delta distribution is not exactly represented as Gaussian, i.e., for any $\mu$ and $\Sigma$. 3) Since anchor-based methods are sensitive to hyper-parameters of anchor, the localization uncertainty modeling is also sensitive to these parameters. Therefore, we propose a new localization uncertainty estimation method called Gaussian-FCOS for anchor-free object detection. Our method captures the uncertainty based on four directions of box offsets~(left, right, top, bottom) that have similar properties, which enables to capture which direction is uncertain and provide a quantitative value in range~[0, 1]. To this end, we design a new uncertainty loss, negative power log-likelihood loss, to measure uncertainty by weighting IoU to the likelihood loss, which alleviates the model misspecification problem. Experiments on COCO datasets demonstrate that our Gaussian-FCOS reduces false positives and finds more missing-objects by mitigating over-confidence scores with the estimated uncertainty. We hope Gaussian-FCOS serves as a crucial component for the reliability-required task

Identification of Gene Expression Signature Modulated by Nicotinamide in a Mouse Bladder Cancer Model

BACKGROUND: Urinary bladder cancer is often a result of exposure to chemical carcinogens such as cigarette smoking. Because of histological similarity, chemically-induced rodent cancer model was largely used for human bladder cancer studies. Previous investigations have suggested that nicotinamide, water-soluble vitamin B3, may play a key role in cancer prevention through its activities in cellular repair. However, to date, evidence towards identifying the genetic alterations of nicotinamide in cancer prevention has not been provided. Here, we search for the molecular signatures of cancer prevention by nicotinamide using a N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)-nitrosamine (BBN)-induced urinary bladder cancer model in mice. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Via microarray gene expression profiling of 20 mice and 233 human bladder samples, we performed various statistical analyses and immunohistochemical staining for validation. The expression patterns of 893 genes associated with nicotinamide activity in cancer prevention were identified by microarray data analysis. Gene network analyses of these 893 genes revealed that the Myc and its associated genes may be the most important regulator of bladder cancer prevention, and the gene expression signature correlated well with protein expression data. Comparison of gene expression between human and mouse revealed that BBN-induced mouse bladder cancers exhibited gene expression profiles that were more similar to those of invasive human bladder cancers than to those of non-invasive human bladder cancers. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study demonstrates that nicotinamide plays an important role as a chemo-preventive and therapeutic agent in bladder cancer through the regulation of the Myc oncogenic signature. Nicotinamide may represent a promising therapeutic modality in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer

Colorimetric Analysis on Flocculation of Bioinspired Au Self-Assembly for Biophotonic Application

Gold nanoparticles exhibited strong surface plasmon absorption and couplings between neighboring particles within bioactivated self-assembly modified their optical properties. Colorimetric analysis on the optical modification of surface plasmon resoanance (SPR) shift and flocculation parameter functionalized bioinspired gold assembly for biophotonic application. The physical origin of bioinspired gold aggregation-induced shifting, decreasing, or broadening of the plasmon absorption spectra could be explained in terms of dynamic depolarization, collisional damping, and shadowing effects

Southern Hemisphere mid- and high-latitudinal AOD, CO, NO2, and HCHO: spatiotemporal patterns revealed by satellite observations

To assess air pollution emitted in Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes and transported to Antarctica, we investigate the climatological mean and temporal trends in aerosol optical depth (AOD), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and formaldehyde (HCHO) columns using satellite observations. Generally, all these measurements exhibit sharp peaks over and near the three nearby inhabited continents: South America, Africa, and Australia. This pattern indicates the large emission effect of anthropogenic activities and biomass burning processes. High AOD is also found over the Southern Atlantic Ocean, probably because of the sea salt production driven by strong winds. Since the pristine Antarctic atmosphere can be polluted by transport of air pollutants from the mid-latitudes, we analyze the 10-day back trajectories that arrive at Antarctic ground stations in consideration of the spatial distribution of mid-latitudinal AOD, CO, NO2, and HCHO. We find that the influence of mid-latitudinal emission differs across Antarctic regions: western Antarctic regions show relatively more back trajectories from the mid-latitudes, while the eastern Antarctic regions do not show large intrusions of mid-latitudinal air masses. Finally, we estimate the long-term trends in AOD, CO, NO2, and HCHO during the past decade (2005-2016). While CO shows a significant negative trend, the others show overall positive trends. Seasonal and regional differences in trends are also discussed

Dual priming oligonucleotide system for the multiplex detection of respiratory viruses and SNP genotyping of CYP2C19 gene

Successful PCR starts with proper priming between an oligonucleotide primer and the template DNA. However, the inevitable risk of mismatched priming cannot be avoided in the currently used primer system, even though considerable time and effort are devoted to primer design and optimization of reaction conditions. Here, we report a novel dual priming oligonucleotide (DPO) which contains two separate priming regions joined by a polydeoxyinosine linker. The linker assumes a bubble-like structure which itself is not involved in priming, but rather delineates the boundary between the two parts of the primer. This structure results in two primer segments with distinct annealing properties: a longer 5′-segment that initiates stable priming, and a short 3′-segment that determines target-specific extension. This DPO-based system is a fundamental tool for blocking extension of non-specifically primed templates, and thereby generates consistently high PCR specificity even under less than optimal PCR conditions. The strength and utility of the DPO system are demonstrated here using multiplex PCR and SNP genotyping PCR

The long-term evaluation of the prognosis of implants with acid-etched surfaces sandblasted with alumina: a retrospective clinical study

Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term clinical stability of implants with acid-etched surfaces sandblasted with alumina using retrospective analyses of the survival rate, success rate, primary and secondary stability, complications, and marginal bone loss of the implants. Methods Patients who had implants placed (TS III SA, SS II SA, SS III SA, and U III SA) with SA surfaces from Osstem (Osstem Implant Co., Busan, Korea) at the Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, from January 2008 to December 2010 were selected for the study. Patients medical records and radiographs (panorama, periapical view) were retrospectively analyzed to investigate sex, age, location of implantation, diameter, and length of the implants, initial and secondary stability, presence of bone grafting, types of bone grafting and membranes, early and delayed complications, marginal bone loss, and implant survival rate. Results Ninety-six implants were placed in 45 patients. Five implants were removed during the follow-up period for a total survival rate of 94.8%. There were 14 cases of complications, including 6 cases of early complications and 8 cases of delayed complications. All five implants that failed to survive were included in the early complications. The survival of implants was significantly associated with the occurrence of complications and the absorption of bone greater than 1 mm within 1 year after prosthetic completion. In addition, the absorption of bone greater than 1 mm within 1 year after prosthetic completion was significantly associated with the occurrence of complications, primary stability, and implant placement method. Five cases that failed to survive were all included in the early complications criteria such as infection, failure of initial osseointegration, and early exposure of the fixture. Conclusions Of the 96 cases, 5 implants failed resulting in a 94.8% survival rate. The failed implants were all cases of early complications such as infection, failure of initial osseointegration, and early exposure of the fixtures. Peri-implantitis was mostly addressed through conservative and/or surgical treatment and resulted in very low prosthetic complications. Therefore, if preventive measures are taken to minimize initial complications, the results can be very stable