Connectionist Temporal Modeling for Weakly Supervised Action Labeling

We propose a weakly-supervised framework for action labeling in video, where only the order of occurring actions is required during training time. The key challenge is that the per-frame alignments between the input (video) and label (action) sequences are unknown during training. We address this by introducing the Extended Connectionist Temporal Classification (ECTC) framework to efficiently evaluate all possible alignments via dynamic programming and explicitly enforce their consistency with frame-to-frame visual similarities. This protects the model from distractions of visually inconsistent or degenerated alignments without the need of temporal supervision. We further extend our framework to the semi-supervised case when a few frames are sparsely annotated in a video. With less than 1% of labeled frames per video, our method is able to outperform existing semi-supervised approaches and achieve comparable performance to that of fully supervised approaches.Comment: To appear in ECCV 201

Oxidative stress-induced mitochondria alteration in human airway smooth muscle cells and mesenchymal stem cells

Poster Discussion Session - D27. Mitochondria: Live and Let Die: no. A5544RATIONALE: Exposure to cigarette smoke (CS) is the primary cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by CS, as well as by infiltrating inflammatory cells, in conjunction with compromised antioxidant defenses in the lungs of COPD patients, results in oxidative stress. Oxidative stress leads to defective function of lung cells, such as airway smooth muscle cells (ASMCs), driving airway inflammation and remodelling. Mitochondrial dysfunction caused by oxidative stress leads to changes in cell survival and inflammatory responses. Mitochondrial transfer between mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) and airway cells has been shown to reverse mitochondrial dysfunction in lung disease models. We investigated the effect of oxidative stress on mitochondrial function and viability of …published_or_final_versio

Computational modelling of emboli travel trajectories in cerebral arteries: Influence of microembolic particle size and density

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Ischaemic stroke is responsible for up to 80 % of stroke cases. Prevention of the reoccurrence of ischaemic attack or stroke for patients who survived the first symptoms is the major treatment target. Accurate diagnosis of the emboli source for a specific infarction lesion is very important for a better treatment for the patient. However, due to the complex blood flow patterns in the cerebral arterial network, little is known so far of the embolic particle flow trajectory and its behaviour in such a complex flow field. The present study aims to study the trajectories of embolic particles released from carotid arteries and basilar artery in a cerebral arterial network and the influence of particle size, mass and release location to the particle distributions, by computational modelling. The cerebral arterial network model, which includes major arteries in the circle of Willis and several generations of branches from them, was generated from MRI images. Particles with diameters of 200, 500 and 800 μ m and densities of 800, 1,030 and 1,300 kg/m 3 were released in the vessel's central and near-wall regions. A fully coupled scheme of particle and blood flow in a computational fluid dynamics software ANASYS CFX 13 was used in the simulations. The results show that heavy particles (density large than blood or a diameter larger than 500 μ m) normally have small travel speeds in arteries; larger or lighter embolic particles are more likely to travel to large branches in cerebral arteries. In certain cases, all large particles go to the middle cerebral arteries; large particles with higher travel speeds in large arteries are likely to travel at more complex and tortuous trajectories; emboli raised from the basilar artery will only exit the model from branches of basilar artery and posterior cerebral arteries. A modified Circle of Willis configuration can have significant influence on particle distributions. The local branch patterns of internal carotid artery to middle cerebral artery and anterior communicating artery can have large impact on such distributions. © 2014 The Author(s)

The Clinical Utility of SUDOSCAN in Chronic Kidney Disease in Chinese Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

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Expression of CD80 and CD86 costimulatory molecules are potential markers for better survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>B7 Costimulatory signal is essential to trigger T-cell activation upon the recognition of tumor antigens. This study examined the expression of B7-1 (CD80) and B7-2 (CD86) costimulatory molecules along with HLA-DR and the presence of infiltrating lymphocytes and dendritic cells to assess their significance in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Expression of CD80, CD86, HLA-DR, S-100 protein and the presence of infiltrating lymphocytes and follicular dendritic reticulum cells were immunohistochemically examined on the paraffin-embedded tissue blocks from newly diagnosed NPC patients (n = 50). The results were correlated with clinical outcome of patients.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>CD80 and CD86 were each expressed in 10 of 50 cases in which they co-expressed in 9 cases. Univariate analysis revealed that patients with CD80/CD86 expression had significantly better overall survival than those without it (P = 0.017), but after adjustment for stage, nodal status, and treatment, the expression of CD80/CD86 did not significantly correlate with overall survival. Expression of HLA-DR and the presence of infiltrating lymphocytes and dendritic cells did not appear to have impact on the survival of patients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Expression of CD80 and CD86 costimulatory molecules appears to be a marker of better survival in patient with NPC.</p

Principles of structural safety studies

This chapter addresses principles of advanced structural safety studies in association with various types of extreme and accidental events. The structural consequences of extreme conditions and accidents are inevitably volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). Methods to model random parameters affecting such extreme conditions and accidents are presented. The importance of limit states- and risk-based approaches is emphasized to manage VUCA environments. Future trends toward advanced structural safety studies are addressed

Clinical correlation of nuclear survivin in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

To examine the correlation of survivin (both total and nuclear survivin) with clinicopathological parameters of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients. Tumors and non-tumor tissues near the proximal resection margins were resected from ESCC patients undergone esophagectomy. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was performed to detect survivin mRNA expression level in the 10 paired tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissues. To confirm with the clinical situation, survivin mRNA and protein expression were measured by qPCR and immunoblot, respectively, in 5 ESCC cell lines and a non-neoplastic esophageal epithelial cell line. Immunohistochemistry was employed to reveal the cellular localization of survivin in tumor tissues isolated from the 64 ESCC patients undergone surgery alone. Up-regulation of survivin mRNA and protein was found in 5 ESCC lines (HKESC-1, HKESC-2, HKESC-3, HKESC-4, and SLMT-1) when compared to a non-neoplastic esophageal epithelial cell line NE-1. In particular, HKESC-3, HKESC-4, and SLMT-1 cells demonstrated ~50-fold increase in survivin mRNA. High level of survivin mRNA in tumor tissues when compared to non-tumor tissues was found in 70 % (7 of 10) of clinical cases. The increase in expression ranged from ~twofold to ~16-fold. Immunohistochemistry results showed that survivin was found at the cell nuclei in all specimens examined. Nuclear expression of survivin was inversely associated with the likelihood of developing nodal metastasis (p = 0.021) and significantly associated with early-stage ESCC (p = 0.039). Nuclear survivin could serve as a marker for indicating disease status in ESCC patients. © 2012 The Author(s).published_or_final_versio

Learning optimal spatially-dependent regularization parameters in total variation image denoising

We consider a bilevel optimization approach in function space for the choice of spatially dependent regularization parameters in TV image denoising models. First- and second-order optimality conditions for the bilevel problem are studied when the spatially-dependent parameter belongs to the Sobolev space H1(Ω). A combined Schwarz domain decomposition-semismooth Newton method is proposed for the solution of the full optimality system and local superlinear convergence of the semismooth Newton method is verified. Exhaustive numerical computations are finally carried out to show the suitability of the approach

Pulmonary ventilation imaging based on 4-dimensional computed tomography: comparison with pulmonary function tests and SPECT ventilation images.

PURPOSE: 4-dimensional computed tomography (4D-CT)-based pulmonary ventilation imaging is an emerging functional imaging modality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the physiological significance of 4D-CT ventilation imaging by comparison with pulmonary function test (PFT) measurements and single-photon emission CT (SPECT) ventilation images, which are the clinical references for global and regional lung function, respectively. METHODS AND MATERIALS: In an institutional review board-approved prospective clinical trial, 4D-CT imaging and PFT and/or SPECT ventilation imaging were performed in thoracic cancer patients. Regional ventilation (V4DCT) was calculated by deformable image registration of 4D-CT images and quantitative analysis for regional volume change. V4DCT defect parameters were compared with the PFT measurements (forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1; % predicted) and FEV1/forced vital capacity (FVC; %). V4DCT was also compared with SPECT ventilation (VSPECT) to (1) test whether V4DCT in VSPECT defect regions is significantly lower than in nondefect regions by using the 2-tailed t test; (2) to quantify the spatial overlap between V4DCT and VSPECT defect regions with Dice similarity coefficient (DSC); and (3) to test ventral-to-dorsal gradients by using the 2-tailed t test. RESULTS: Of 21 patients enrolled in the study, 18 patients for whom 4D-CT and either PFT or SPECT were acquired were included in the analysis. V4DCT defect parameters were found to have significant, moderate correlations with PFT measurements. For example, V4DCT(HU) defect volume increased significantly with decreasing FEV1/FVC (R=-0.65, P<.01). V4DCT in VSPECT defect regions was significantly lower than in nondefect regions (mean V4DCT(HU) 0.049 vs 0.076, P<.01). The average DSCs for the spatial overlap with SPECT ventilation defect regions were only moderate (V4DCT(HU)0.39 ± 0.11). Furthermore, ventral-to-dorsal gradients of V4DCT were strong (V4DCT(HU) R(2) = 0.69, P=.08), which was similar to VSPECT (R(2) = 0.96, P<.01). CONCLUSIONS: An 18-patient study demonstrated significant correlations between 4D-CT ventilation and PFT measurements as well as SPECT ventilation, providing evidence toward the validation of 4D-CT ventilation imaging

Limb body wall complex, amniotic band sequence, or new syndrome caused by mutation in IQ Motif containing K (IQCK)?

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