MSECNet: Accurate and Robust Normal Estimation for 3D Point Clouds by Multi-Scale Edge Conditioning

Estimating surface normals from 3D point clouds is critical for various applications, including surface reconstruction and rendering. While existing methods for normal estimation perform well in regions where normals change slowly, they tend to fail where normals vary rapidly. To address this issue, we propose a novel approach called MSECNet, which improves estimation in normal varying regions by treating normal variation modeling as an edge detection problem. MSECNet consists of a backbone network and a multi-scale edge conditioning (MSEC) stream. The MSEC stream achieves robust edge detection through multi-scale feature fusion and adaptive edge detection. The detected edges are then combined with the output of the backbone network using the edge conditioning module to produce edge-aware representations. Extensive experiments show that MSECNet outperforms existing methods on both synthetic (PCPNet) and real-world (SceneNN) datasets while running significantly faster. We also conduct various analyses to investigate the contribution of each component in the MSEC stream. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in surface reconstruction.Comment: Accepted for ACM MM 202

Meteorin regulates mesendoderm development by enhancing nodal expression

During gastrulation, distinct lineage specification into three germ layers, the mesoderm, endoderm and ectoderm, occurs through an elaborate harmony between signaling molecules along the embryonic proximo-distal and anterior-posterior axes, and Nodal signaling plays a key role in the early embryonic development governing embryonic axis formation, mesoderm and endoderm specification, and left-right asymmetry determination. However, the mechanism by which Nodal expression is regulated is largely unknown. Here, we show that Meteorin regulates Nodal expression and is required for mesendoderm development. It is highly expressed in the inner cell mass of blastocysts and further in the epiblast and extra-embryonic ectoderm during gastrulation. Genetic ablation of the Meteorin gene resulted in early embryonic lethality, presumably due to impaired lineage allocation and subsequent cell accumulation. Embryoid body culture using Meteorin-null embryonic stem (ES) cells showed reduced Nodal expression and concomitant impairment of mesendoderm specification. Meteorin-null embryos displayed reduced levels of Nodal transcripts before the gastrulation stage, and impaired expression of Goosecoid, a definitive endoderm marker, during gastrulation, while the proximo-distal and anterior-posterior axes and primitive streak formation were preserved. Our results show that Meteorin is a novel regulator of Nodal transcription and is required to maintain sufficient Nodal levels for endoderm formation, thereby providing new insights in the regulation of mesendoderm allocation.open1113sciescopu

Protective Mechanism of KIOM-4 in Streptozotocin-Induced Pancreatic β-Cells Damage Is Involved in the Inhibition of Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress

Endoplasmic reticulum stress-mediated apoptosis plays an important role in the destruction of pancreatic β-cells and contributes to the development of type 1 diabetes. The present study examined the effect of KIOM-4, a mixture of four plant extracts, on streptozotocin- (STZ-) induced endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in rat pancreatic β-cells (RINm5F). KIOM-4 was found to inhibit STZ-induced apoptotic cell death, confirmed by formation of apoptotic bodies and DNA fragmentation. STZ was found to induce the characteristics of ER stress; mitochondrial Ca2+ overloading, enhanced ER staining, release of glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), phosphorylation of RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) like ER kinase (PERK) and eukaryotic initiation factor-2α (eIF-2α), cleavage of activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6) and caspase 12, and upregulation of CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein-homologous protein (CHOP). However, KIOM-4 attenuated these changes induced by STZ. Furthermore, KIOM-4 suppressed apoptosis induced by STZ in CHOP downregulated cells using CHOP siRNA. These results suggest that KIOM-4 exhibits protective effects in STZ-induced pancreatic β-cell damage, by interrupting the ER stress-mediated pathway

Associated factors of depression in pregnant women in Korea based on the 2019 Korean Community Health Survey: a cross-sectional study

Purpose Various individual and social factors influence depression in pregnant women. The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of socioeconomic status, health behaviors, and health status on depression of pregnant women in Korea. Methods This study analyzed data from the 2019 Korean Community Health Survey conducted from August to October 2019. A structural questionnaire with Patient Health Quetsionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), health behavior, health status, and psychological characteristics was used. The data of 1,096 pregnant women between the ages of 19 and 55 years were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent-test and chi-square tests, and multiple regression. Results The mean score of prenatal depression as measured by the PHQ-9 during pregnancy was 2.35 points out of 0 to 27 points. Low income (B=0.69, p<.001), low-education level (B=0.70, p<.001), skipping breakfast (B=0.34, p=.001), less than 8 hours of sleeping (B=0.26, p=.009), binge drinking during pregnancy (B=0.46, p=.001), and stress (B=1.89, p<.001) were significantly associated with increased depression scores. In contrast, depression scores significantly decreased as subjective health status (B=–0.59, p<.001) and subjective oral health status (B=–.17, p=.003) increased. Conclusion Findings support the need for healthcare policies and clinical screening to alleviate prenatal depression, especially for pregnant women with low socioeconomic status, poor health behavior, poor health status, and high stress

Interpretable Edge Enhancement and Suppression Learning for 3D Point Cloud Segmentation

3D point clouds can flexibly represent continuous surfaces and can be used for various applications; however, the lack of structural information makes point cloud recognition challenging. Recent edge-aware methods mainly use edge information as an extra feature that describes local structures to facilitate learning. Although these methods show that incorporating edges into the network design is beneficial, they generally lack interpretability, making users wonder how exactly edges help. To shed light on this issue, in this study, we propose the Diffusion Unit (DU) that handles edges in an interpretable manner while providing decent improvement. Our method is interpretable in three ways. First, we theoretically show that DU learns to perform task-beneficial edge enhancement and suppression. Second, we experimentally observe and verify the edge enhancement and suppression behavior. Third, we empirically demonstrate that this behavior contributes to performance improvement. Extensive experiments performed on challenging benchmarks verify the superiority of DU in terms of both interpretability and performance gain. Specifically, our method achieves state-of-the-art performance in object part segmentation using ShapeNet part and scene segmentation using S3DIS. Our source code will be released at https://github.com/martianxiu/DiffusionUnit

Effect of biochars pyrolyzed in N2 and CO2, and feedstock on microbial community in metal(loid)s contaminated soils

Little is known about the effects of applying amendments on soil for immobilizing metal(loid)s on the soil microbial community. Alterations in the microbial community were examined after incubation of treated contaminated soils. One soil was contaminated with Pb and As, a second soil with Cd and Zn. Red pepper stalk (RPS) and biochars produced from RPS in either N2 atmosphere (RPSN) or CO2 atmosphere (RPSC) were applied at a rate of 2.5% to the two soils and incubated for 30 days. Bacterial communities of control and treated soils were characterized by sequencing 16S rRNA genes using the Illumina MiSeq sequencing. In both soils, bacterial richness increased in the amended soils, though somewhat differently between the treatments. Evenness values decreased significantly, and the final overall diversities were reduced. The neutralization of pH, reduced available concentrations of Pb or Cd, and supplementation of available carbon and surface area could be possible factors affecting the community changes. Biochar amendments caused the soil bacterial communities to become more similar than those in the not amended soils. The bacterial community structures at the phylum and genus levels showed that amendment addition might restore the normal bacterial community of soils, and cause soil bacterial communities in contaminated soils to normalize and stabilize