Objective:
Alzheimer disease (AD) brains are deficient in brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which regulates synaptic plasticity and memory. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are ∼22‐nucleotide small ...noncoding RNAs that control a variety of physiological and disease processes. Here, we show that miR‐206 regulates BDNF and memory function in AD mice.
Methods:
Expression of miRNAs was analyzed in Tg2576 AD transgenic mice and human AD brain samples. Regulation of BDNF by a selected miRNA was validated by in silico prediction, target gene luciferase assay, and dendritic spine responses in neurons. AM206, a neutralizing inhibitor of miR‐206 (antagomir), was injected into the third ventricle of Tg2576 mice, after which memory function, synaptogenesis, neurogenesis, and target gene expression were assessed. For noninvasive delivery, antagomirs were administered intranasally.
Results:
The brains of Tg2576 mice and the temporal cortex of human AD brains had increased levels of miR‐206. This miRNA targeted BDNF transcripts, and AM206 prevented the detrimental effects of amyloid‐β42 on BDNF and dendritic spine degeneration in Tg2576 neurons. Injection of AM206 into the cerebral ventricles of AD mice increased the brain levels of BDNF and improved their memory function. In parallel, AM206 enhanced the hippocampal synaptic density and neurogenesis. Furthermore, intranasally administered AM206 also reached the brain and increased BDNF levels and memory function in AD mice.
Interpretation:
Our findings demonstrate a novel miRNA‐dependent regulation of BDNF in AD and suggest possible therapeutic approaches, such as noninvasive intranasal delivery of AM206. ANN NEUROL 2012;72:269–277.
Even though many public parking lots are located underground and indoors, most existing automatic parking space detection and tracking methods have difficulty handling such scenarios due to severe ...illumination and complex obstacle conditions. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a method that detects and tracks parking spaces in underground and indoor environments by fusing sensors already mounted on mass produced vehicles. The proposed detection method finds parking spaces based on a high-level fusion of two complementary approaches: parking slot marking-based and free space-based. Parking slots are detected by estimating parallel line pairs and free spaces are detected by recognizing the positions of parked vehicles as well as pillars. The proposed tracking method enhances the previous method by considering pillar information. Since pillars degrade parking slot tracking performance, this method estimates a pillar region and utilizes it to remove false edges and to estimate the amount of occlusion.
This paper proposes a sensor fusion-based low-cost vehicle localization system. The proposed system fuses a global positioning system (GPS), an inertial measurement unit (IMU), a wheel speed sensor, ...a single front camera, and a digital map via the particle filter. This system is advantageous over previous methods from the perspective of mass production. First, it only utilizes low-cost sensors. Second, it requires a low-volume digital map where road markings are expressed by a minimum number of points. Third, it consumes a small computational cost and has been implemented in a low-cost real-time embedded system. Fourth, it requests the perception sensor module to transmit a small amount of information to the vehicle localization module. Last, it was quantitatively evaluated in a large-scale database.
This paper proposes a vacant parking slot detection and tracking system that fuses the sensors of an Around View Monitor (AVM) system and an ultrasonic sensor-based automatic parking system. The ...proposed system consists of three stages: parking slot marking detection, parking slot occupancy classification, and parking slot marking tracking. The parking slot marking detection stage recognizes various types of parking slot markings using AVM image sequences. It detects parking slots in individual AVM images by exploiting a hierarchical tree structure of parking slot markings and combines sequential detection results. The parking slot occupancy classification stage identifies vacancies of detected parking slots using ultrasonic sensor data. Parking slot occupancy is probabilistically calculated by treating each parking slot region as a single cell of the occupancy grid. The parking slot marking tracking stage continuously estimates the position of the selected parking slot while the ego-vehicle is moving into it. During tracking, AVM images and motion sensor-based odometry are fused together in the chamfer score level to achieve robustness against inevitable occlusions caused by the ego-vehicle. In the experiments, it is shown that the proposed method can recognize the positions and occupancies of various types of parking slot markings and stably track them under practical situations in a real-time manner. The proposed system is expected to help drivers conveniently select one of the available parking slots and support the parking control system by continuously updating the designated target positions.
In intelligent transportation systems, it is essential to estimate the vehicle position accurately. To this end, it is preferred to detect vehicles as a bottom face quadrilateral (BFQ) rather than an ...axis-aligned bounding box. Although there have been some methods for detecting the vehicle BFQ using vehicle-mounted cameras, few studies have been conducted using surveillance cameras. Therefore, this paper conducts a comparative study on various approaches for detecting the vehicle BFQ in surveillance camera environments. Three approaches were selected for comparison, including corner-based, position/size/angle-based, and line-based. For comparison, this paper suggests a way to implement the vehicle BFQ detectors by simply adding extra heads to one of the most widely used real-time object detectors, YOLO. In experiments, it was shown that the vehicle BFQ can be adequately detected by using the suggested implementation, and the three approaches were quantitatively evaluated, compared, and analyzed.
An automatic parking system is an essential part of autonomous driving, and it starts by recognizing vacant parking spaces. This paper proposes a method that can recognize various types of parking ...slot markings in a variety of lighting conditions including daytime, nighttime, and underground. The proposed method can readily be commercialized since it uses only those sensors already mounted on off-the-shelf vehicles: an around-view monitor (AVM) system, ultrasonic sensors, and in-vehicle motion sensors. This method first detects separating lines by extracting parallel line pairs from AVM images. Parking slot candidates are generated by pairing separating lines based on the geometric constraints of the parking slot. These candidates are confirmed by recognizing their entrance positions using line and corner features and classifying their occupancies using ultrasonic sensors. For more reliable recognition, this method uses the separating lines and parking slots not only found in the current image but also found in previous images by tracking their positions using the in-vehicle motion-sensor-based vehicle odometry. The proposed method was quantitatively evaluated using a dataset obtained during the day, night, and underground, and it outperformed previous methods by showing a 95.24% recall and a 97.64% precision.
Huntington's disease (HD) is a genetic neurodegenerative disease caused by abnormal CAG expansion. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short RNA molecules regulating gene expression, and are implicated in a ...variety of diseases including HD. However, the profiles and regulation of miRNAs in HD are not fully understood. Here, we analyzed the miRNA expression and miRNA regulators in two transgenic models of HD, YAC128 and R6/2 mice, and in a 3-nitropropionic acid (3NP)-induced striatal degeneration rat model. After characterizing the phenotypes by behavioral tests and histological analyses, we profiled striatal miRNAs using a miRNA microarray and we measured the key molecules involved in miRNA biogenesis and function. YAC128 mice showed upregulation-dominant miRNA expressions at 5months and downregulation-dominant expressions at 12months. Concomitantly, the expressions of Drosha-DGCR8, Exportin-5, and Dcp1 were increased at 5months, and the expression of Dicer was decreased at 12months. In 10-week-old R6/2 mice, downregulation was dominant in the miRNA expressions and the level of Drosha decreased concomitantly. Nine miRNAs (miR-22, miR-29c, miR-128, miR-132, miR-138, miR-218, miR-222, miR-344, and miR-674*) were commonly down-regulated in both the 12-month-old YAC128 and 10-week-old R6/2 mice. Meanwhile, 3NP rats showed dynamic changes in the miRNA profiles during disease development and a few miRNAs with altered expression. Our results show that transgenic HD mice have abnormal miRNA biogenesis. This information should aid in future studies on therapeutic application of miRNAs in HD.
►MicroRNA expressions are globally reduced in Huntington's disease transgenic mice. ►Dicer is reduced in YAC128 mice, and Drosha is reduced in R6/2 mice. ►Altered microRNA biogenesis might be involved in Huntington's disease.
Cerium ferrite (CFO) covalently coupled with pristine graphitic carbon nitride (PCN) for organic-micropollutant demineralization and nitrogen photo-fixation under UVA-LED (400 nm) light irradiation.
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•PCN@CFO heterojunction is prepared by a one-step thermal route.•Fast photoexcited electron PCN-to-CFO transfer forms a Z-scheme heterojunction.•High PCN@CFO photocatalytic performance for nitrogen photo-fixation.•High PCN@CFO photocatalytic performance for micropollutant demineralization.•Strong correlation of Ce3+ and Ov with photocatalytic performance.
The application of pristine graphitic carbon nitride (PCN, g-C3N4)/cerium ferrite (CeFeO3, CFO) composites as photocatalysts for energy production and water treatment has not yet been reported despite its great potential. In this study, CFO, an orthorhombic perovskite-type oxide, was covalently coupled to PCN via a facile single-step calcination strategy. Compared to PCN, optimized 1% CFO-doped PCN (PCN@CFO1) exhibited wide ranges of organic-micropollutant removal (sulfamethoxazole (SMX), atrazine, and bisphenol A) and achieved approximately 49.9% of total-organic-carbon (TOC) removal for SMX in 4 h with 5 stable reusable performances. Further, scavenger experiments and the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spin-trap analysis revealed that PCN@CFO1 could produce superoxide (O2−) and hydroxyl radicals (OH) for organic-pollutant degradation. Meanwhile, the intermediate species of organic pollutants were investigated using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to identify the degradation pathways. Of note, PCN@CFO1 achieved up to 573.12 µmol l−1 g−1 of ammonia production rate and 2.92% of apparent quantum efficiency of nitrogen photo-fixation at 400 nm, which was 8 times higher than that of PCN. Through coupling CFO and PCN, the flat band potential was found to be upshifted, and a high ratio of the Ce3+ interface associated with oxygen vacancies was generated, resulting in the formation of a Z-scheme system. Remarkably, the formation of the Z-scheme structure on PCN@CFO1 showed enhancement in charge transfer, hydrophilicity, and charge separation, significantly improving the photocatalytic performance for organic-micropollutant demineralization and nitrogen photo-fixation under UVA-LED (400 nm) light irradiation. Our study provided a facile and scalable preparation strategy for multifunctional photocatalysts that could be effectively activated under energy-efficient UVA-LED irradiation for energy production and emerging pollutants degradation.
This paper presents a Monte Carlo localization algorithm for an autonomous car based on an integration of multiple sensors data. The sensor system is composed of onboard motion sensors, a low-cost ...GPS receiver, a precise digital map, and multiple cameras. Data from the onboard motion sensors, such as yaw rate and wheel speeds, are used to predict the vehicle motion, and the GPS receiver is applied to establish the validation boundary of the ego-vehicle position. The digital map contains location information at the centimeter level about road surface markers (RSMs), such as lane markers, stop lines, and traffic sign markers. The multiple images from the front and rear mono-cameras and the around-view monitoring system are used to detect the RSM features. The localization algorithm updates the measurements by matching the RSM features from the cameras to the digital map based on a particle filter. Because the particle filter updates the measurements based on a probabilistic sensor model, the exact probabilistic modeling of sensor noise is a key factor to enhance the localization performance. To design the probabilistic noise model of the RSM features more explicitly, we analyze the results of the RSM feature detection for various real driving conditions. The proposed localization algorithm is verified and evaluated through experiments under various test scenarios and configurations. From the experimental results, we conclude that the presented localization algorithm based on the probabilistic noise model of RSM features provides sufficient accuracy and reliability for autonomous driving system applications.
Introduction
The eradication rates for Helicobacter pylori have decreased in Korea although the prevalence of this bacterium has also decreased. Antibiotic resistance is likely to be a crucial factor ...in H. pylori eradication success, and we therefore mapped these resistance patterns nationwide in Korea.
Materials and Methods
Five hundred and ninety adult subjects were prospectively enrolled from 2017 to 2018 from 15 centers across six geographic areas of Korea. A total of 580 biopsy tissues had been sampled from these patients during an upper endoscopy and were frozen at −80°C and delivered to a central laboratory. The agar dilution method was used to determine the minimum inhibitory concentration of amoxicillin, clarithromycin, metronidazole, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, and levofloxacin for each H. pylori isolate.
Results
The culture success rate was 60.2% (349/580). Resistance rates against clarithromycin, metronidazole, amoxicillin, tetracycline, levofloxacin, and ciprofloxacin were 17.8%, 29.5%, 9.5%, 0%, 37.0%, and 37.0%, respectively. The geographic distribution of metronidazole and quinolone resistance was highly variable. Some subjects had multiple H. pylori strains in the antrum and body of the stomach and showed a heterogeneous resistance profile between these anatomic areas. The H. pylori multidrug resistance (MDR) rate was 25.2% (88/349) among amoxicillin, clarithromycin, metronidazole, tetracycline, and quinolone and 11.2% (39/349) among four of these major antibiotics except for quinolone. The Seoul and Chungcheong areas showed a relatively lower MDR rate.
Conclusion
The antibiotic resistance of H. pylori differs by drug and geographic area in Korea. Detailed nationwide antibiotic resistance mapping is needed to develop an effective H. pylori eradication strategy.
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