RGN-Net: A Global Contextual and Multiscale Information Association Network for Medical Image Segmentation

Segmentation of medical images is a necessity for the development of healthcare systems, particularly for illness diagnosis and treatment planning. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have gained amazing success in automatically segmenting medical images to identify organs or lesions. However, the majority of these approaches are incapable of segmenting objects of varying sizes and training on tiny, skewed datasets, both of which are typical in biomedical applications. Existing solutions use multi-scale fusion strategies to handle the difficulties posed by varying sizes, but they often employ complicated models more suited to broad semantic segmentation computer vision issues. In this research, we present an end-to-end dual-branch split architecture RGN-Net that takes the benefits of the two networks into greater account. Our technique may successfully create long-term functional relationships and collect global context data. Experiments on Lung, MoNuSeg, and DRIVE reveal that our technique reaches state-of-the-art benchmarks in order to evaluate the performance of RGN-Net

CTransNet: Convolutional Neural Network Combined with Transformer for Medical Image Segmentation

The Transformer has been widely used for many tasks in NLP before, but there is still much room to explore the application of the Transformer to the image domain. In this paper, we propose a simple and efficient hybrid Transformer framework, CTransNet, which combines self-attention and CNN to improve medical image segmentation performance. Capturing long-range dependencies at different scales. To this end, this paper proposes an effective self-attention mechanism incorporating relative position information encoding, which can reduce the time complexity of self-attention from O(n2) to O(n), and a new self-attention decoder that can recover fine-grained features in encoder from skip connection. This paper aims to address the current dilemma of Transformer applications: i.e., the need to learn induction bias from large amounts of training data. The hybrid layer in CTransNet allows the Transformer to be initialized as a CNN without pre-training. We have evaluated the performance of CTransNet on several medical segmentation datasets. CTransNet shows superior segmentation performance, robustness, and great promise for generalization to other medical image segmentation tasks

China is on the track tackling Enteromorpha spp forming green tide

Green tide management is supposed to be a long term fight rather than an episode during the 29th Olympic Games for China, since it has been gaining in scale and frequency during the past 3 decades in both marine and estuary environment all over the world. A number of rapid-responding studies including oceanographic comprehensive surveys along the coastline have been conducted during the bloom and post-bloom periods in 2008 by Chinese marine scientists. The preliminary results are as below: (1) phylogenetic analysis indicates that the bloom forming alga forms a clade with representatives of the green seaweed Enteromorpha linza, though, the alga has been identified as E. proliera by means of morphological; (2) the present data suggest that the bloom was originated from south of Yellow Sea, but not the severely affected area near Qingdao City; (3) pathways of reproduction for E. prolifera have approved to be multifarious, including sexual, asexual and vegetative propagation; (4) somatic cells may act as a propagule bank, which is supposed to be a very dangerous transmitting way for its marked movability, adaptability and viability; (5) pyrolysis of the alga showed that three stages appeared during the process, which are dehydration (18–20^o^C), main devolatilization (200–450^o^C) and residual decomposition (450–750^o^C), and activation energy of the alga was determined at 237.23 KJ•mol^-1^. Although the scarce knowlegde on E. prolifera not yet allow a fully understanding of the green tide, some of the results suggests possible directions in further green tide research and management

Comparison of left ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony parameters between exercise and adenosine triphosphate stress tests using gated single-photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging

Background Left ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony (LVMD) can be induced after stress test. However, no studies have compared the influence of different stress-inducing methods on LVMD parameters. aims The aim of the study was to determine whether there is a difference between exercise and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) stress tests in terms of changes in LVMD parameters assessed using gated single-photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging (GSPECT MPI). methods A total of 190 patients who underwent 99mTc-sestamibi GSPECT MPI were consecutively enrolled. Treadmill exercise and ATP stress tests were performed in 95 patients each. Normal myocardial perfusion was defined as the summed stress score (SSS) ≤3 and summed rest score (SRS) ≤3, myocardial ischemia as SSS \u3e3 and SRS ≤3, and myocardial infarction as SSS \u3e3 and SRS \u3e3. Parameters of LVMD, including phase standard deviation (PSD), phase bandwidth (PBW), skewness, and kurtosis were compared. Subtraction was made between values during stress and rest phases to acquire ∆PSD, ∆PBW, ∆skewness, and ∆kurtosis. results There were no differences in LVMD parameters between the exercise and ATP groups. The same results were obtained in the normal perfusion, ischemia, and infarction subgroups. Furthermore, no differences were observed in ∆PSD (median [interquartile range, IQR], 0.25 [-2.3 to 3.1] vs 0.42 (-1.7 to 3.1]; P = 0.73), ∆PBW (median [IQR], 1 [-7 to 11] vs 1 [-6 to 11]; P = 0.95), ∆skewness (mean [SD], -0.06 [0.63] vs 0 [0.81]; P= 0.53), and ∆kurtosis (median [IQR], -0.47 [-4.2 to 4.3] vs -0.42 [-4.8 to 5.2]; P= 0.73) between the exercise and ATP stress-inducing methods. conclusions There are no differences between the exercise and ATP stress tests in terms of changes in LVMD parameters. Thus, the 2 methods can be used alternatively

Myocardial Stunning-Induced Left Ventricular Dyssynchrony On Gated Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography Myocardial Perfusion Imaging

Objectives Myocardial stunning provides additional nonperfusion markers of coronary artery disease (CAD), especially for severe multivessel CAD. The purpose of this study is to assess the influence of myocardial stunning to the changes of left ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony (LVMD) parameters between stress and rest gated single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). Patients and methods A total of 113 consecutive patients (88 males and 25 females) who had undergone both stress and rest 99mTc-sestamibi gated SPECT MPI were retrospectively enrolled. Suspected or known patients with CAD were included if they had exercise stress MPI and moderate to severe myocardial ischemia. Segmental scores were summed for the three main coronary arteries according to standard myocardial perfusion territories, and then regional perfusion, wall motion, and wall thickening scores were measured. Myocardial stunning was defined as both ischemia and wall dysfunction within the same coronary artery territory. Patients were divided into the stunning group (n=58) and nonstunning group (n=55). Results There was no significant difference of LVMD parameters between stress and rest in the nonstunning group. In the stunning group, phase SD and phase histogram bandwidth of contraction were significantly larger during stress than during rest (15.05±10.70 vs. 13.23±9.01 and 46.07±34.29 vs. 41.02±32.16, PP\u3c0.05). Conclusion Both systolic and diastolic LVMD parameters deteriorate with myocardial stunning. This kind of change may have incremental values to diagnose CAD

Characterization of OAZ1 and its potential functions in goose follicular development

Background: Ornithine decarboxylase antizyme 1 (OAZ1) is an important regulator of polyamine synthesis and uptake. Our previous studies indicated that high OAZ1 expression in the ovaries of laying geese is responsible for poor egg production. In the present study, the molecular characterization of goose OAZ1 gene was analyzed, as well as the expression profile in various follicular tissues. Results: An 873-bp cDNA sequence of the OAZ1 gene (Accession No. KC845302) with a +1 frameshift site (+175T) was obtained. The sequence consisted of a 652-bp two overlapping open reading frames (a putative protein with 216 amino acids). The OAZ domain, OAZ signature and OAZ super family domain were prominent conserved regions among species. As the follicle size increased, OAZ1 abundance showed an increasing trend during follicular development, while it decreased during follicular regression. The level of OAZ1 mRNA expression was the lowest in the fifth largest preovulatory follicle, and was 0.65-fold compared to the small white follicle (P < 0.05). OAZ1 mRNA expression in the largest preovulatory and postovulatory follicle was 2.11- and 2.49-fold compared to the small white follicle, respectively (P < 0.05). Conclusions: The goose OAZ1 structure confirms that OAZ1 plays an important role in ornithine decarboxylase-mediated regulation of polyamine homeostasis. Our findings provide an evidence for a potential function of OAZ1 in follicular development, ovulation and regression

Development and Validation of a New Method to Diagnose Apical Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy By Gated Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography Myocardial Perfusion Imaging

Aim The aim of this study is to develop and validate a new method to diagnose apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (AHCM) by the integral quantitative analysis of myocardial perfusion and wall thickening from gated single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). Patients and methods Twenty-two consecutive patients, who showed T wave inversion of at least 3 mm in precordial leads and sinus rhythm in ECG, were enrolled. All the patients underwent cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR), gated rest SPECT MPI and echocardiography. According to CMR diagnostic results, 13 patients were categorized as in the AHCM group and the remaining nine patients were categorized as in the non-AHCM group. Operators who were blinded to the CMR diagnosis independently performed the diagnosis by gated SPECT MPI. The regions of interest inside the apical hotspots on the perfusion polar map were drawn and the mean values of wall thickening in the drawn region of interests were calculated. Using MRI diagnosis as the gold standard, AHCM was diagnosed based on receiver operating characteristic analysis of the mean wall thickening in the apical perfusion hotspot. The area under curve, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of our method were 0.97, 100, 89, and 95%, respectively. Conclusion Our new method has high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy against CMR diagnosis. It has great promise to become a clinical tool in the diagnosis of AHCM

Diabetic retinopathy risk in patients with unhealthy lifestyle: A Mendelian randomization study

PurposeThis study aimed to investigate the causal association between unhealthy lifestyle factors and diabetic retinopathy (DR) risk and to determine better interventions targeting these modifiable unhealthy factors.DesignTwo-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was performed in this study. The inverse variance-weighted method was used as the primary method.MethodOur study included 687 single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with unhealthy lifestyle factors as instrumental variables. Aggregated data on individual-level genetic information were obtained from the corresponding studies and consortia. A total of 292,622,3 cases and 739,241,18 variants from four large consortia (MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit [MRC-IEU], Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits [GIANT], GWAS & Sequencing Consortium of Alcohol and Nicotine Use [GSCAN], and Neale Lab) were included.ResultIn the MR analysis, a higher body mass index (BMI) (odds ratio [OR], 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.42, 1.30–1.54; P < 0.001] and cigarettes per day (OR, 95% CI = 1.16, 1.05–1.28; P = 0.003) were genetically predicted to be causally associated with an increased risk of DR, while patients with higher hip circumference (HC) had a lower risk of DR (OR, 95% CI = 0.85, 0.76–0.95; P = 0.004). In the analysis of subtypes of DR, the results of BMI and HC were similar to those of DR, whereas cigarettes per day were only related to proliferative DR (PDR) (OR, 95% CI = 1.18, 1.04–1.33; P = 0.009). In the MR-PRESSO analysis, a higher waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) was a risk factor for DR and PDR (OR, 95% CI = 1.24, 1.02–1.50, P = 0.041; OR, 95% CI = 1.32, 1.01–1.73, P = 0.049) after removing the outliers. Furthermore, no pleiotropy was observed in these exposures.ConclusionOur findings suggest that higher BMI, WHR, and smoking are likely to be causal factors in the development of DR, whereas genetically higher HC is associated with a lower risk of DR, providing insights into a better understanding of the etiology and prevention of DR