•An effective framework for de-noising and compressing sensor pattern noise (a form of device fingerprint) is proposed.•A compact and discriminative representation can be obtained directly from a ...high-dimensional SPN.•A novel training set construction method is designed to minimize the impact of various interfering artifacts in training samples.•The proposed methods can be used as a post-processing framework applied after any SPN extraction methods for effective source camera identification.
Sensor pattern noise (SPN) is an inherent fingerprint of imaging devices, which provides an effective way for source camera identification (SCI). Although SPNs extracted from large image blocks usually yield high identification accuracy, their high dimensionality would incur a high computational cost in the matching stage, consequently hindering many applications that require efficient camera matchings. In this work, we employ and evaluate the concept of principal component analysis (PCA) de-noising in SCI tasks. Based on this concept, we present a framework that formulates a compact SPN representation. To enhance the de-noising effect, we introduce a training set construction procedure that minimizes the impact of various interfering artifacts, which is especially useful in some challenging cases, e.g., when only textured reference images are available. To further boost the SCI performance, a novel approach based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is adopted to extract more discriminant SPN features. To evaluate our methods, extensive experiments are conducted on the Dresden image database. The results indicate that the proposed framework can serve as an effective post-processing procedure, which not only boosts the performance, but also greatly reduces the computational cost in the matching phase.
The patient was a 46-year-old woman. CT and MRI revealed a mass, 10-mm in diameter, located in the uncinate process of the pancreas. The qualitative diagnosis was difficult. On contrast-enhanced ...harmonic endoscopic ultrasonography (CH-EUS) , a papillary solid region in the tumor showed contrast enhancement similar to that of the surrounding normal pancreatic parenchyma in the early phase. The contrast with an anechoic region was clearly depicted. A solid pseudopapillary neoplasm of the pancreas (SPN) was suspected, and a pylorus-preserving pancreatoduodenectomy was performed. The pathological diagnosis including the results of immunohistochemistry was an SPN. Even if the tumor diameter is small, CH-EUS can provide an evaluation of blood flow and clearer contrast on opacified images and is therefore considered a useful diagnostic modality.
Ship detection is one of important applications for synthetic aperture radar (SAR). Speckle effects usually make SAR image understanding difficult and speckle reduction becomes a necessary ...pre-processing step for majority SAR applications. This work examines different speckle reduction methods on SAR ship detection performances. It is found out that the influences of different speckle filters are significant which can be positive or negative. However, how to select a suitable combination of speckle filters and ship detectors is lack of theoretical basis and is also data-orientated. To overcome this limitation, a speckle-free SAR ship detection approach is proposed. A similar pixel number (SPN) indicator which can effectively identify salient target is derived, during the similar pixel selection procedure with the context covariance matrix (CCM) similarity test. The underlying principle lies in that ship and sea clutter candidates show different properties of homogeneity within a moving window and the SPN indicator can clearly reflect their differences. The sensitivity and efficiency of the SPN indicator is examined and demonstrated. Then, a speckle-free SAR ship detection approach is established based on the SPN indicator. The detection flowchart is also given. Experimental and comparison studies are carried out with three kinds of spaceborne SAR datasets in terms of different polarizations. The proposed method achieves the best SAR ship detection performances with the highest figures of merits (FoM) of 97.14%, 90.32% and 93.75% for the used Radarsat-2, GaoFen-3 and Sentinel-1 datasets, accordingly.
We evaluated the effectiveness of anti-22F serotype immunity in the prevention of Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) bacterial transmission during colonization and influenza virus co-infection. Mice were ...immunized with 22F formulation and later colonized with Spn or co-infected with Spn and influenza virus. The 22F antisera exhibited strong reactivity to 22F bacteria and promoted the opsonic uptake of Spn by the neutrophils. The 22F vaccination led to a significant reduction of bacterial densities in the nasopharynx and prevented bacterial transmission during colonization and co-infection. The transfer of 22F antisera to infant mice resulted in reduced bacterial transmission in colonization and co-infection models.
•An open-source two-step scheme coupling OpenMC and Trivac is developed and verified for fast reactor analysis.•The MC-generated multigroup cross-sections and the diffusion solver shows good ...performance.•The overestimation in core reactivity using MC-generated multigroup cross-sections and SPn core solver is identified.•SPH correction in control rod assembly is implemented and improve significantly the prediction of control rod worth and power distribution.
This research develops an open-source two-step scheme coupling the Monte-Carlo (MC) code OpenMC and the deterministic code Trivac for fast reactor neutronic modeling. The multigroup cross-sections are generated using OpenMC with a complete core model, continuous energy, and high-level heterogeneity. The core calculation is achieved with diffusion or simplified Pn (SPn) solvers in Trivac. The scheme is verified with a 1000 MWth metallic-fueled fast reactor. The MC/diffusion scheme in this work shows good performance in the prediction of core reactivity, sodium void worth, and Doppler constant. The overestimation of MC/SPn is discussed by combining a complete review of MC-based two-step schemes. The SPH correction in control rod assembly can improve significantly the prediction of control rod worth and power distribution. Based on the scheme developed in this research, the SPH correction at a full core level will be verified. The application in depletion, transient, and multiphysics analysis could be developed.
Abstract
Background
Up to 30% of patients admitted to hospitals with invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) experience major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE) including new/worsening heart failure, ...new/worsening arrhythmia, and/or myocardial infarction. Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) is the most frequently isolated bacterial pathogen among community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) patients and the only etiological agent linked independently to MACE. Nevertheless, no clinical data exist identifying which serotypes of Spn are principally responsible for MACE.
Methods
This was an observational multicenter retrospective study conducted through the Public Health Secretary of Bogotá, Colombia. We included patients with a confirmed clinical diagnosis of IPD with record of pneumococcal serotyping and clinical information between 2012 and 2019. Spn were serotyped using the quellung method by the National Center of Microbiology. MACE were determined by a retrospective chart review.
Results
The prevalence of MACE was 23% (71/310) in IPD patients and 28% (53/181) in patients admitted for CAP. The most prevalent S. pneumoniae serotype identified in our study was the 19A, responsible for the 13% (42/310) of IPD in our cohort, of which 21% (9/42) presented MACE. Serotypes independently associated with MACE in IPD patients were serotype 3 (odds ratio OR 1, 48; 95% confidence interval CI 1.21–2.27; P = .013) and serotype 9n (OR 1.29; 95% CI 1.08–2.24; P = .020). Bacteremia occurred in 87% of patients with MACE. Moreover, serum concentrations of C-reactive protein were elevated in patients with MACE versus in non-MACE patients (mean standard deviation, 138 145 vs 73 106, P = .01).
Conclusions
MACE are common during IPD with serotype 3 and 9n independently of frequency.
Major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE) is a common event during invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) with several factors shown to have key roles in its development, including host prior cardiovascular comorbidities, disease severity, and bacteremia. Here we report for the first time that Spn serotype 3 and 9n are independently associated with the development of MACE in IPD.
If you know that you are the author of a freely chosen action and that you bear responsibility for its outcome, then you are said to have “a sense of agency.” When there is a delay between action and ...outcome, this response must be remembered if you are to learn from the experience. Previous studies have shown that the Stimulus‐Preceding Negativity (SPN) recorded during the delay interval is larger under conditions that foster a sense of agency. In an EEG experiment (N = 27), we confirmed that the SPN is larger when participants have a choice between two responses in a gambling task as compared to when there is only a single button and the computer determines the monetary outcome. This SPN agency effect was largest over right prefrontal cortex and it did not vary significantly between trial blocks in which only gains or only losses were possible. Participants in a second experiment (N = 26) performed the same task while activity in anterior insular cortex, a known SPN generator, was measured via functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI). An essentially identical pattern of results was obtained: Activity was greater on choice than no‐choice trials, especially for the right hemisphere, and no effect of contextual valence was observed. Although parallel observations such as these cannot warrant causal inference, our findings are consistent with the assumption that anterior insular cortex contributes to the effect of agency on the SPN.
A slow cortical potential associated with anticipation of rewarding outcomes is enhanced by the feeling of having caused that outcome. Separate but parallel experiments using EEG and fMRI suggested that that this enhancement might originate in a brain region near the right temple, the right anterior insular cortex.
•Issues in developing numerical methods for GSP3_0 are analyzed and resolved.•The generalized transverse integration nodal method (GTIN) is developed for GSP3_0.•GTIN solves for not only nodal ...surface currents but their profile slopes as well.•Numerical benchmarking demonstrates the superiority of GSP3_0 over SP3.
GSPN(0) is the lowest level approximation in the GSPN(K) theory, whose highest level GSPN(N) is equivalent to PN. GSPN(0) has the same differential equations as the traditional SPN but with different interface and boundary conditions. In this paper we show that GSP3(0) can be practically implemented and can indeed provide much improvement over SP3. The very popular traditional transverse integration nodal method cannot be applied to GSP3(0) because of not being able to theoretically derive the non-flat shape of the surface current profile. The GSP3(0) flux continuity condition requires at least a linear surface current profile, while its current continuity condition requires at least a quadratic surface current profile. For practical applications we have developed the generalized transverse integration nodal (GTIN) method, where in addition to uniformly weighted transverse integration linearly weighted transverse integration is used as well. GTIN contains a theoretically derived linear profile of the surface current so that it can fully support the GSP3(0) flux continuity condition, although only partially supporting the GSP3(0) current continuity condition. Numerical results for numerous two-dimensional problems are reported to confirm the theoretical analysis and expectation, and demonstrate the superiority of the GTIN model of GSP3(0) to SP3. Detailed nodal coupling equations are derived for the two-dimensional case so that they can be directly used by interested readers for code development.
•Increased SPN content in a mixed protein system enhances the strength of the sono-physico-chemical action.•A ratio of SPI to SPN of 1:3 gives the greatest sono-physical–chemical effect.•Excessive ...sono-physico-chemical effects can significantly reduce coupling rates and cause protein reaggregation.•The high SPN group's grafting rate rose from 39.13% to 55.26% in comparison to the high SPI content group.
Since it may be employed to guide the production of high-quality plant protein as a partial substitute for animal protein using sono-physico-chemical effects, it is important to investigate the mixing of animal and plant protein in ultrasound (UID)-assisted processing systems. A study group of sono-physico-chemical processing with five distinct soy protein isolate (SPI)/ sarcoplasmic protein (SPN) ratios was developed in this work. The results showed that adding additional SPN to the mixed protein can increase its sono-physico-chemical impact, and this effect is greatest when the ratio of SPI to SPN is 1:3. The high SPN group's grafting rate rose from 39.13% to 55.26% in comparison to the high SPI content group. Quercetin (Que) may more readily modify SPN than SPI in the “dual protein” system used in this work, highlighting the critical function of plant protein in controlling the effects of UID-assisted processing in the “dual protein” system. Changes in apparent viscosity and microstructure are the primary parameters that affect the severity of sono-physico-chemical effects in SPI/SPN mixed protein systems, in addition to structural variables.
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