Humans can naturally and effectively find salient regions in complex scenes. Motivated by this observation, attention mechanisms were introduced into computer vision with the aim of imitating this ...aspect of the human visual system. Such an attention mechanism can be regarded as a dynamic weight adjustment process based on features of the input image. Attention mechanisms have achieved great success in many visual tasks, including image classification, object detection, semantic segmentation, video understanding, image generation, 3D vision, multimodal tasks, and self-supervised learning. In this survey, we provide a comprehensive review of various attention mechanisms in computer vision and categorize them according to approach, such as channel attention, spatial attention, temporal attention, and branch attention; a related repository
https://github.com/MenghaoGuo/Awesome-Vision-Attentions
is dedicated to collecting related work. We also suggest future directions for attention mechanism research.
Tribulus terrestris L. (Zygophyllaceae) (TT) is usually used as a cardiotonic, diuretic, and aphrodisiac, as well as for herbal post-stroke rehabilitation in traditional Chinese medicine. However, ...little is known about the renoprotective effects of TT on obesity-related glomerulopathy (ORG). In this study, 340 monomeric compounds were identified from TT extracts obtained with ethyl acetate combined with 50% methanol. In vitro, IC50 of TT was 912.01 mg/L, and the appropriate concentration of TT against oxidized-low density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) induced human renal glomerular endothelial cells (HRGECs) was 4 mg/L. TT significantly increased the viability (63.2%) and migration (2.33-fold increase) of HRGECs. ORG model rats were induced by a chronic high-fat diet (45%) for 20 weeks and were then treated with TT extract (2.8 g/kg/d) for 8 weeks. Subsequently, the kidneys were removed and their differentially expressed protein profile was identified using two-dimensional electrophoresis coupled with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF)-TOF MS. Molecular categorization and functional analysis of bioinformatic annotation suggested that excessive energy metabolism, decreased response to stress and low immunity were the potential etiologies of ORG. After TT administration for 8 weeks, body weight, blood pressure, serum cystatin C and cholesterol were decreased. Additionally, TT significantly enhanced the resistance of rats to ORG, decreased energy consumption and the hemorrhagic tendency, and improved the response to acute phase reactants and immunity. In conclusion, TT may play a protective role against ORG in rats.
A total of 900 juvenile Jian carp (Cyprinus carpio var. Jian) (7.99 ± 0.02 g) were fed diets containing graded levels of xylanase at 220 (unsupplemented control), 650, 1070, 1480, 1810 and ...2470 U kg⁻¹ diet for 10 weeks to investigate the effects of xylanase levels on growth performance, intestinal enzyme activities and microflora. The per cent weight gain, feed efficiency, protein efficiency ratio, protein production value, lipid production value, ash production value, calcium production value and phosphorus retention ratio were significantly improved with increasing levels of xylanase up to a point, and thereafter declined (P < 0.05). The activities of trypsin, chymotrypsin, lipase and amylase in the hepatopancreas and intestine, activities of alkaline phosphatase, Na⁺, K⁺‐ATPase, creatine kinase and γ‐glutamyl transpeptidase in three intestinal segments were improved by dietary xylanase (P < 0.05). The amounts of Lactobacillus, Escherichia coli and Aeromonas were significantly affected by dietary xylanase levels (P < 0.05). In conclusion, xylanase supplementation improved growth performance, enhanced intestinal enzyme activities and influenced the balance of intestinal microflora of juvenile Jian carp. The optimal level of xylanase in juvenile Jian carp (7.99–99.16 g) based on PWG was 1259 U kg⁻¹ diet by the quadratic regression analysis.
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), which is typically lack of expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), represents the ...most aggressive and mortal subtype of breast cancer. Currently, only a few treatment options are available for TNBC due to the absence of molecular targets, which underscores the need for developing novel therapeutic and preventive approaches for this disease. Recent evidence from clinical trials and preclinical studies has demonstrated a pivotal role of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) in the initiation, progression, metastasis, and immune evasion of TNBC. STAT3 is overexpressed and constitutively activated in TNBC cells and contributes to cell survival, proliferation, cell cycle progression, anti-apoptosis, migration, invasion, angiogenesis, chemoresistance, immunosuppression, and stem cells self-renewal and differentiation by regulating the expression of its downstream target genes. STAT3 small molecule inhibitors have been developed and shown excellent anticancer activities in in vitro and in vivo models of TNBC. This review discusses the recent advances in the understanding of STAT3, with a focus on STAT3's oncogenic role in TNBC. The current targeting strategies and representative small molecule inhibitors of STAT3 are highlighted. We also propose potential strategies that can be further examined for developing more specific and effective inhibitors for TNBC prevention and therapy.
Gastric cancer is a deadly disease and remains the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The 5-year overall survival rate of patients with early-stage localized gastric cancer is ...more than 60%, whereas that of patients with distant metastasis is less than 5%. Surgical resection is the best option for early-stage gastric cancer, while chemotherapy is mainly used in the middle and advanced stages of this disease, despite the frequently reported treatment failure due to chemotherapy resistance. Therefore, there is an unmet medical need for identifying new biomarkers for the early diagnosis and proper management of patients, to achieve the best response to treatment. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in body fluids have attracted widespread attention as biomarkers for early screening, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and responses to drugs due to the high specificity and sensitivity. In the present review, we focus on the clinical potential of lncRNAs as biomarkers in liquid biopsies in the diagnosis and prognosis of gastric cancer. We also comprehensively discuss the roles of lncRNAs and their molecular mechanisms in gastric cancer chemoresistance as well as their potential as therapeutic targets for gastric cancer precision medicine.
The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has become a global crisis. Replication of SARS-CoV-2 requires the viral ...RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) enzyme, a target of the antiviral drug remdesivir. Here we report the cryo-electron microscopy structure of the SARS-CoV-2 RdRp, both in the apo form at 2.8-angstrom resolution and in complex with a 50-base template-primer RNA and remdesivir at 2.5-angstrom resolution. The complex structure reveals that the partial double-stranded RNA template is inserted into the central channel of the RdRp, where remdesivir is covalently incorporated into the primer strand at the first replicated base pair, and terminates chain elongation. Our structures provide insights into the mechanism of viral RNA replication and a rational template for drug design to combat the viral infection.
Abstract
Kirsten Rat Sarcoma Viral Oncogene Homolog (KRAS) is the most frequently mutated oncogene, occurring in a variety of tumor types. Targeting KRAS mutations with drugs is challenging because ...KRAS is considered undruggable due to the lack of classic drug binding sites. Over the past 40 years, great efforts have been made to explore routes for indirect targeting of KRAS mutant cancers, including KRAS expression, processing, upstream regulators, or downstream effectors. With the advent of KRAS (G12C) inhibitors, KRAS mutations are now druggable. Despite such inhibitors showing remarkable clinical responses, resistance to monotherapy of KRAS inhibitors is eventually developed. Significant progress has been made in understanding the mechanisms of drug resistance to KRAS-mutant inhibitors. Here we review the most recent advances in therapeutic approaches and resistance mechanisms targeting KRAS mutations and discuss opportunities for combination therapy.
As a fundamental and critical task in various visual applications, image matching can identify then correspond the same or similar structure/content from two or more images. Over the past decades, ...growing amount and diversity of methods have been proposed for image matching, particularly with the development of deep learning techniques over the recent years. However, it may leave several open questions about which method would be a suitable choice for specific applications with respect to different scenarios and task requirements and how to design better image matching methods with superior performance in accuracy, robustness and efficiency. This encourages us to conduct a comprehensive and systematic review and analysis for those classical and latest techniques. Following the feature-based image matching pipeline, we first introduce feature detection, description, and matching techniques from handcrafted methods to trainable ones and provide an analysis of the development of these methods in theory and practice. Secondly, we briefly introduce several typical image matching-based applications for a comprehensive understanding of the significance of image matching. In addition, we also provide a comprehensive and objective comparison of these classical and latest techniques through extensive experiments on representative datasets. Finally, we conclude with the current status of image matching technologies and deliver insightful discussions and prospects for future works. This survey can serve as a reference for (but not limited to) researchers and engineers in image matching and related fields.
Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images have gained extensive attention in varying fields, and the Structure from Motion (SfM) technique has become the gold standard for aerial triangulation of UAV ...images. With increasing data volume caused by the use of multi-view and high-resolution imaging systems and the enhancement of UAV platform’s endurance, the capability for orientation of large-scale UAV images is becoming a prominent and necessary feature for SfM-based solutions. A classical SfM pipeline consists of three major steps, i.e., (i) feature extraction for an individual image, (ii) feature matching for each image pair, and (iii) parameter solving based on iterative bundle adjustment. Most of the time costs are consumed in the second and third steps. This can be explained from three main aspects. First, for feature matching the large number of images and high overlapping degrees cause high combinational complexity of match pairs. Second, the efficiency of commonly utilized techniques for outlier removal would be seriously degenerated because of high outlier ratios of initial matches. Third, for parameter solving of camera poses and scene structures, the iterative execution of bundle adjustment (BA) leads to high computational costs in the incremental SfM workflow. Thus, this paper gives a systematic survey of the state-of-the-art for match pair selection from both ordered and unordered datasets, for outlier removal of initial matches dominated by outliers, and for efficiency improvement of BA, and conducts an experimental evaluation for six well-known SfM-based software packages on UAV image orientation.
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