Reflections often cause degradation in image quality for pictures taken through glass medium. Removing the undesired reflections is becoming increasingly important. For human vision, it can produce ...much more pleasing results for multimedia applications. For machine vision, it can benefit various applications such as image segmentation and classification. Reflection removal is itself a highly illposed inverse problem that is very difficult to solve, especially for a single input image. Existing methods mainly rely on various prior information and assumptions to alleviate the ill-posedness. In this paper, we design a variational model based on multiscale hard thresholding to both effectively and efficiently suppress image reflections. A direct solver using the discrete cosine transform for implementing the proposed variational model is also provided. Both synthetic and real glass images are used in the numerical experiments to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with other representative algorithms. The experimental results show the superiority of our algorithm over the previous ones.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder and 70-80% of PD patients suffer from gastrointestinal dysfunction such as constipation. We aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of fecal ...microbiota transplantation (FMT) for treating PD related to gastrointestinal dysfunction. We conducted a prospective, single- study. Eleven patients with PD received FMT. Fecal samples were collected before and after FMT and subjected to 16S ribosomal DNA (rDNA) gene sequencing. Hoehn-Yahr (H-Y) grade, Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) score, and the Non-Motion Symptom Questionnaire (NMSS) were used to assess improvements in motor and non-motor symptoms. PAC-QOL score and Wexner constipation score were used to assess the patient's constipation symptoms. All patients were tested by the small intestine breath hydrogen test, performed before and after FMT. Community richness (chao) and microbial structure in before-FMT PD patients were significantly different from the after-FMT. We observed an increased abundance of Blautia and Prevotella in PD patients after FMT, while the abundance of Bacteroidetes decreased dramatically. After FMT, the H-Y grade, UPDRS, and NMSS of PD patients decreased significantly. Through the lactulose H2 breath test, the intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) in PD patients returned to normal. The PAC-QOL score and Wexner constipation score in after-FMT patients decreased significantly. Our study profiles specific characteristics and microbial dysbiosis in the gut of PD patients. FMT might be a therapeutic potential for reconstructing the gut microbiota of PD patients and improving their motor and non-motor symptoms.
Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a highly destructive disease in human neurological functions. Adipose‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) have tissue regenerations and anti‐inflammations, ...especially with prion protein overexpression (PrPcOE). Therefore, this study tested whether PrPcOE‐ADMSCs therapy offered benefits in improving outcomes via regulating nod‐like‐receptor‐protein‐3 (NLRP3) inflammasome/DAMP signalling after acute SCI in rats. Compared with ADMSCs only, the capabilities of PrPcOE‐ADMSCs were significantly enhanced in cellular viability, anti‐oxidative stress and migration against H2O2 and lipopolysaccharide damages. Similarly, PrPcOE‐ADMSCs significantly inhibited the inflammatory patterns of Raw264.7 cells. The SD rats (n = 32) were categorized into group 1 (Sham‐operated‐control), group 2 (SCI), group 3 (SCI + ADMSCs) and group 4 (SCI + PrPcOE‐ADMSCs). Compared with SCI group 2, both ADMSCs and PrPcOE‐ADMSCs significantly improved neurological functions. Additionally, the circulatory inflammatory cytokines levels (TNF‐α/IL‐6) and inflammatory cells (CD11b/c+/MPO+/Ly6G+) were highest in group 2, lowest in group 1, and significantly higher in group 3 than in group 4. By Day 3 after SCI induction, the protein expressions of inflammasome signalling (HGMB1/TLR4/MyD88/TRIF/c‐caspase8/FADD/p‐NF‐κB/NEK7/NRLP3/ASC/c‐caspase1/IL‐ß) and by Day 42 the protein expressions of DAMP‐inflammatory signalling (HGMB1/TLR‐4/MyD88/TRIF/TRAF6/p‐NF‐κB/TNF‐α/IL‐1ß) in spinal cord tissues displayed an identical pattern as the inflammatory patterns. In conclusion, PrPcOE‐ADMSCs significantly attenuated SCI in rodents that could be through suppressing the inflammatory signalling.
The role of histone modifications in transcription remains incompletely understood. Here, we examine the relationship between histone modifications and transcription using experimental perturbations ...combined with sensitive machine-learning tools. Transcription predicted the variation in active histone marks and complex chromatin states, like bivalent promoters, down to single-nucleosome resolution and at an accuracy that rivaled the correspondence between independent ChIP-seq experiments. Blocking transcription rapidly removed two punctate marks, H3K4me3 and H3K27ac, from chromatin indicating that transcription is required for active histone modifications. Transcription was also required for maintenance of H3K27me3, consistent with a role for RNA in recruiting PRC2. A subset of DNase-I-hypersensitive sites were refractory to prediction, precluding models where transcription initiates pervasively at any open chromatin. Our results, in combination with past literature, support a model in which active histone modifications serve a supportive, rather than an essential regulatory, role in transcription.
In contrast to anionic group theory of nonlinear optical (NLO) materials that second‐harmonic generation (SHG) responses mainly originate from anionic groups, structural regulation on the cationic ...groups of salt‐inclusion chalcogenides (SICs) is performed to make them also contribute to the NLO effects. Herein, the stereochemically active lone–electron‐pair Pb2+ cation is first introduced to the cationic groups of NLO SICs, and the resultant K2PbXGa7S12 (X = Cl, Br, I) are isolated via solid‐state method. The features of their three‐dimensional structures comprise highly oriented Ga7S123− and K2PbX3+ frameworks derived from AgGaS2, which display the largest phase‐matching SHG intensities (2.5−2.7 × AgGaS2 @1800 nm) among all SICs. Concurrently, three compounds manifest band gap values of 2.54, 2.49, and 2.41 eV (exceeding the criterion of 2.33 eV), which can avoid two‐photon absorption under the fundamental laser of 1064 nm, along with the relatively low anisotropy of thermal expansion coefficients, leading to improved laser‐induced damage thresholds (LIDTs) values of 2.3, 3.8, and 4.0 times that of AgGaS2. In addition, the density of states and SHG coefficient calculations demonstrate that the Pb2+ cations narrow the band gaps and benefit SHG responses.
By introducing stereochemically active lone–electron‐pair cations in the cationic groups of salt‐inclusion chalcogenides (SICs), three compounds K2PbXGa7S12 (X = Cl, Br, I) are successfully obtained, which display the highest phase‐matching nonlinear optical (NLO) responses in reported SICs and suitable band gaps exceeding 2.33 eV to avoid two‐photon absorption at 1064 nm.
•We propose a strongly imposed zero patch minimum constraint for the latent clear image, which helps alleviate the ill-posedness of the inverse problem for blind image deblurring.•We retrieve ...important fine details by assigning the patch minimum information obtained from the blurred image back to the latent image to further enhance its structure.•We introduce an adaptive regularizer which was shown to have significantly better edge-preserving property than the total variation regularizer for the final image restoration of blurred images.
Blind image deblurring is a very challenging inverse problem due to the severe ill-posedness caused by the unknown kernel and the latent clear image. To tackle this problem, appropriate smoothing regularizations and image priors are usually employed and incorporated into the associated variational models to alleviate the inherent ill-posedness. In this paper, we first propose a strongly imposed zero patch minimum constraint for the latent image, which helps alleviate the ill-posedness of the inverse problem for blind image deblurring. Then, we retrieve important fine details by assigning the patch minimum information obtained from the blurred image back to the latent image to further enhance its structure. Finally, we introduce an adaptive regularizer which was shown to have significantly better edge-preserving property than the total variation regularizer for the image restoration of degraded images. Operator splitting techniques are used to accomplish an efficient numerical implementation of the proposed variational model. A number of numerical experiments and comparisons with some state-of-the-art methods are conducted to demonstrate the effective performance of the newly proposed method.
This study tested the hypothesis that Jagged2/Notches promoted the endothelial‐mesenchymal transition (endMT)‐mediated pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) (i.e. induction by monocrotaline MCT/63 ...mg/kg/subcutaneous injection) through increasing the expression of GATA‐binding factors which were inhibited by propylthiouracil (PTU) (i.e. 0.1% in water for daily drinking since Day 5 after PAH induction) in rodent. As compared with the control (i.e. HUVECs), the protein expressions of GATAs (3/4/6) and endMT markers (Snail/Zeb1/N‐cadherin/vimentin/fibronectin/α‐SMA/p‐Smad2) were significantly reduced, whereas the endothelial‐phenotype markers (CD31/E‐cadherin) were significantly increased in silenced JAG2 gene or in silenced GATA3 gene of HUVECs (all p < 0.001). As compared with the control, the protein expressions of intercellular signallings (GATAs 3/4/6, Jagged1/2, notch1/2 and Snail/Zeb1/N‐cadherin/vimentin/fibronectin/α‐SMA/p‐Smad2) were significantly upregulated in TGF‐ß/monocrotaline‐treated HUVECs that were significantly reversed by PTU treatment (all p < 0.001). By Day 42, the results of animal study demonstrated that the right‐ventricular systolic‐blood‐pressure (RVSBP), RV weight (RVW) and lung injury/fibrotic scores were significantly increased in MCT group than sham‐control (SC) that were reversed in MCT + PTU groups, whereas arterial oxygen saturation (%) and vasorelaxation/nitric oxide production of PA exhibited an opposite pattern of RVW among the groups (all p < 0.0001). The protein expressions of hypertrophic (ß‐MHC)/pressure‐overload (BNP)/oxidative‐stress (NOX‐1/NOX‐2) biomarkers in RV and the protein expressions of intercellular signalling (GATAs3/4/6, Jagged1/2, notch1/2) and endMT markers (Snail/Zeb1/N‐cadherin/vimentin/fibronectin/TGF‐ß/α‐SMA/p‐Smad2) in lung parenchyma displayed an identical pattern of RVW among the groups (all p < 0.0001). Jagged‐Notch‐GATAs signalling, endMT markers and RVSBP that were increased in PAH were suppressed by PTU.
Abstract
Objectives
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a hidden neurological degenerative disease, which main clinical manifestations are cognitive dysfunction, memory impairment and mental disorders. ...Neuroinflammation is considered as a basic response of the central nervous system. NLRP3 (Nucleotide-binding domain leucine-rich repeat (NLR) and pyrin domain containing receptor 3) inflammasome is closely related to the occurrence of neuroinflammation. Activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome results in the release of cytokines, pore formation and ultimately pyroptosis, which has demonstrated one of the critical roles in AD pathogenesis. Inhibition of the activity of NLRP3 is one of the focuses of the research. Therefore, NLRP3 represents an attractive pharmacological target, and discovery compounds with good NLRP3 inhibitory activity are particularly important.
Key findings
Quinones have good neuroprotective effects and prevent AD, which may be related to their regulation of inflammatory response. The molecular docking was used to explore 12 quinones with AD prevention and treatment and NLRP3. Docking results showed that the combination of anthraquinones and NLRP3 were the best, and the top two chemical compounds were Purpurin and Rhein, which are the most promising NLRP3 inhibitors.
Summary
These quinones may provide the theoretical basis for finding lead compounds for novel neuroprotective agents.
•We propose an adaptive variational model based on saturation and con- trast enhancement for single image dehazing.•An adaptive function is introduced to balance the enhancement between saturation ...and contrast to prevent excessive artifacts.•A split Bregman algorithm is employed to accomplish an efficient numer- ical implementation for the proposed variational model.•Experimental comparisons demonstrate that the proposed method is com- parable to some popular dehazing methods and even outperforms some of them both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Haze removal, also known as image dehazing, plays an important role in image/video processing and computer vision applications. Its main purpose is to eliminate haze to improve the visibility and quality of the image. However, due to the lack of scene information, including depth, transmission, and atmospheric light, haze removal essentially becomes a very challenging inverse problem. In this paper, we propose a novel and highly effective variational model for single image haze removal. The proposed method mainly utilizes a new idea of joint contrast and saturation enhancement. Incorporated with both adaptivity and physical cues, the proposed model is able to produce clear and visually satisfactory dehazed results and simultaneously prevent excessive artifacts caused by over-enhancement. The split Bregman algorithm is employed to accomplish an efficient numerical implementation for the proposed variational model. A number of numerical experiments and comparisons with some representative methods are conducted to demonstrate the good performance of the newly proposed model.
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![[K2PbX][Ga7S12] (X = Cl, Br...](http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/image/issn/XR4PS5YY4K/2198-3844/small "[K2PbX][Ga7S12] (X = Cl, Br, I): The First Lead‐Containing Cationic Moieties with Ultrahigh Second‐Harmonic Generation and Band Gaps Exceeding the Criterion of 2.33 eV")
