The proportion of pet keeping has increased significantly. According to the survey results of Business Next, the proportion of Taiwan families keeping pets was 70% in 2020. Among them, the total ...number of fish pets was close to 33% of the overall pet proportion. Therefore, aquarium pets have become indispensable companions for families. At present, many studies have discussed intelligent aquarium systems. Through image recognition based on visual sensors, we may be able to detect and interpret the physiological status of the fish according to their physiological appearance. In this way, it can help to notify the owner as soon as possible to treat the fish or isolate them individually, so as to avoid the spread of infection. However, most aquarium pets are kept in groups. Traditional image recognition technologies often fail to recognize each fish’s physiological states precisely because of fish swimming behaviors, such as grouping swimming, shading with each other, flipping over, and so on. In view of this, this paper tries to address such problems and then proposes a practical scheme, which includes three phases. Specifically, the first phase tries to enhance the image recognition model for small features based on the prioritizing rules, thus improving the instant recognition capability. Then, the second phase exploits a designed fish-ID tracking mechanism and analyzes the physiological state of the same fish-ID through coherent frames, which can avoid temporal misidentification. Finally, the third phase leverages a fish-ID correction mechanism, which can detect and correct their IDs periodically and dynamically to avoid tracking confusion, and thus potentially improve the recognition accuracy. According to the experiment results, it was verified that our scheme has better recognition performance. The best accuracy and correctness ratio can reach up to 94.9% and 92.67%, which are improved at least 8.41% and 26.95%, respectively, as compared with the existing schemes.
Background/Aims
There are substantial genetic components contributing to the susceptibility of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). It has recently been reported that the rs641738 C>T variant in ...the membrane‐bound O‐acyltransferase domain‐containing protein 7 (MBOAT7) gene increased severity of NAFLD in adults of European descent. We aimed to test the hypothesis that MBOAT7 rs641738 variant would increase hepatic steatosis and hepatocellular injury in obese children.
Methods
A total of 831 obese children aged 7‐15 years were recruited. Hepatic steatosis was measured by ultrasonography. Because PNPLA3 rs738409, GCKR rs780094 and TM6SF2 rs58542926 variants are known to confer susceptibility to NAFLD, we assessed the influence of MBOAT7 rs641738 on hepatic steatosis, and serum levels of CK‐18 fragment (a biomarker of hepatocellular injury and apoptosis for NAFLD) after adjusting the effects of PNPLA3, GCKR and TM6SF2 polymorphisms.
Results
Of the recruited obese children, 22.7% had hepatic steatosis. PNPLA3 rs738409, GCKR rs780094 and TM6SF2 rs58542926 variants were independent risk factors of hepatic steatosis and elevated ALT levels. In contrast, MBOAT7 rs641738 variants, neither heterozygous nor homozygous genotypes, were not associated with hepatic steatosis, insulin resistance, lipid levels and liver enzymes. The multiple linear regression model revealed that after adjusting for age, gender, body mass index z score, PNPLA3 rs738409 and GCKR rs780094 variants, but not MBOAT7 rs641738, were associated with serum levels of CK‐18 fragment.
Conclusions
The variant MBOAT7 rs641738 genotype is not associated with hepatic steatosis and serum levels of CK‐18 fragment in obese Taiwanese children.
Facility maintenance management (FMM) has become an important topic for research on the operation phase of the construction life cycle. Managing FMM effectively is extremely difficult owing to ...various factors and environments. One of the difficulties is the performance of 2D graphics when depicting maintenance service. Building information modeling (BIM) uses precise geometry and relevant data to support the maintenance service of facilities depicted in 3D object-oriented CAD. This paper proposes a new and practical methodology with application to FMM using BIM technology. Using BIM technology, this study proposes a BIM-based facility maintenance management (BIMFMM) system for maintenance staff in the operation and maintenance phase. The BIMFMM system is then applied in selected case study of a commercial building project in Taiwan to verify the proposed methodology and demonstrate its effectiveness in FMM practice. Using the BIMFMM system, maintenance staff can access and review 3D BIM models for updating related maintenance records in a digital format. Moreover, this study presents a generic system architecture and its implementation. The combined results demonstrate that a BIMFMM-like system can be an effective visual FMM tool.
In recent years, there has been a growing trend of mandating high-power conversion efficiency, for not only the heavy-load but also the light-load conditions. To achieve this purpose, a ripple-based ...constant on-time (RBCOT) control for dc-dc converters has received wide attentions because of its natural characteristic of switching frequency reduction under the light-load condition. However, a RBCOT control suffers from an output-voltage offset problem and a subharmonic instability problem. In this paper, a modified RBCOT buck converter circuit is proposed to solve both problems. The circuit uses the concept of virtual inductor current to stabilize the feedback, and an offset-cancellation circuit to eliminate the output dc offset. The modified circuit can be fabricated into an integrated circuit (IC) without adding any pin compared to conventional circuits. A control model based on describing function is developed for the modified converter. The small-signal characteristics and design criteria to meet stability are derived. From the model, it is also found out that it is much easier to accomplish adaptive voltage positioning using the proposed modified RBCOT scheme compared to a conventional constant-frequency controller. Simulation and experimental results are given to verify the proposed scheme.
Encoded by EEF1A1, the eukaryotic translation elongation factor eEF1α1 strongly promotes the heat shock response, which protects cancer cells from proteotoxic stress, following for instance oxidative ...stress, hypoxia or aneuploidy. Unexpectedly, therefore, we find that EEF1A1 mRNA levels are reduced in virtually all breast cancers, in particular in ductal carcinomas. Univariate and multivariate analyses indicate that EEF1A1 mRNA underexpression independently predicts poor patient prognosis for estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) cancers. EEF1A1 mRNA levels are lowest in the most invasive, lymph node-positive, advanced stage and postmenopausal tumors. In sharp contrast, immunohistochemistry on 100 ductal breast carcinomas revealed that at the protein level eEF1α1 is ubiquitously overexpressed, especially in ER+ , progesterone receptor-positive and lymph node-negative tumors. Explaining this paradox, we find that EEF1A1 mRNA levels in breast carcinomas are low due to EEF1A1 allelic copy number loss, found in 27% of tumors, and cell cycle-specific expression, because mRNA levels are high in G1 and low in proliferating cells. This also links estrogen-induced cell proliferation to clinical observations. In contrast, high eEF1α1 protein levels protect tumor cells from stress-induced cell death. These observations suggest that, by obviating EEF1A1 transcription, cancer cells can rapidly induce the heat shock response following proteotoxic stress, and survive.
Abstract
R-bodies are long, extendable protein polymers formed in the cytoplasm of some bacteria; they are best known for their role in killing of paramecia by bacterial endosymbionts.
Pseudomonas ...aeruginosa
PA14, an opportunistic pathogen of diverse hosts, contains genes (referred to as the
reb
cluster) with potential to confer production of R-bodies and that have been implicated in virulence. Here, we show that products of the PA14
reb
cluster associate with R-bodies and control stochastic expression of R-body structural genes. PA14 expresses
reb
genes during colonization of plant and nematode hosts, and R-body production is required for full virulence in nematodes. Analyses of nematode ribosome content and immune response indicate that
P. aeruginosa
R-bodies act via a mechanism involving ribosome cleavage and translational inhibition. Our observations provide insight into the biology of R-body production and its consequences during
P. aeruginosa
infection.
Osteoarthritis (OA) is characterized by degradation of the cartilage matrix, leading to pathologic changes in the joints. However, the pathogenic effects of synovial tissue inflammation on OA knees ...are not clear. To investigate whether the inflammation caused by the medial plica is involved in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis, we examined the expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs), interleukin (IL)-1β, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α in the medial plica and pannus-like tissue in the knees of patients with medial compartment OA who underwent either arthroscopic medial release (stage II; 15 knee joints from 15 patients) or total knee replacement (stage IV; 18 knee joints from 18 patients). MMP-2, MMP-3, MMP-9, IL-1β, and TNF-α mRNA and protein levels measured, respectively, by quantitative real-time PCR and Quantibody human MMP arrays, were highly expressed in extracts of medial plica and pannus-like tissue from stage IV knee joints. Immunohistochemical staining also demonstrated high expression of MMP-2, MMP-3, and MMP-9 in plica and pannus-like tissue of stage IV OA knees and not in normal cartilage. Some TIMP/MMP ratios decreased significantly in both medial plica and pannus-like tissue as disease progressed from stage II to stage IV. Furthermore, the migration of cells from the pannus-like tissue was enhanced by IL-1β, while plica cell migration was enhanced by TNF-α. The results suggest that medial plica and pannus-like tissue may be involved in the process of cartilage degradation in medial compartment OA of the knee.
This paper describes a video coding technology proposal submitted by MediaTek in April 2018 in response to a joint call for proposals (CfP) issued by ITU-T VCEG and ISO/IEC MPEG. The proposal uses ...the conventional block-based hybrid coding approach with a breakthrough design of block structure, substantial improvements of coding tools, and new inventions of loop filtering techniques. First, the block structure is designed using a highly flexible partitioning scheme, where each coding tree unit in a picture is split into multiple coding units (CUs) by a recursive quaternary tree followed by a recursive binary-ternary tree. The prediction unit (PU) and transform unit (TU) concepts are unified with the CU concept, i.e., PU and TU are basically the same as CU. Moreover, inter prediction, intra prediction, transform, quantization, in-loop filtering, and entropy coding are all improved. Finally, new loop filtering techniques are invented, where the proposed convolutional neural network loop filtering is of particular interest. The proposed video codec achieves 43.81% average bit rate savings based on objective measures compared to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) anchors and is among the best-performing CfP responses both objectively and subjectively. It has been partially adopted into the working draft of the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard.
Chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin has been the standard of care in first-line chemotherapy for advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC) since the trial ABC-02 was published in 2010. We aimed to ...investigate the prognostic and predictive factors of this regimen in a cohort of Taiwanese patients with advanced BTC.
A total of 118 patients with histologically confirmed BTC treated at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Linkou from 2012 to 2017 were retrospectively reviewed.
The median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were 3.6 months and 8.4 months, respectively. In the multivariate analysis, neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) > 7.45, biliary drainage requiring both percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography drainage (PTCD) and internal stenting, and tumor responses with progressive diseases and not assessed were independent poor prognostic factors for PFS. Male sex, NLR > 7.45, alkaline phosphatase> 94 U/L, biliary drainage requiring both PTCD and internal stenting, and tumor responses with stable disease, progressive diseases and not assessed were independent poor prognostic factors for OS. Monocyte to lymphocyte ratio (MLR) ≤ 0.28 was the only significant predictive factor for the tumor response. Patients with complete response/partial response had significantly lower MLR than patients with other tumor responses.
We identified three important prognostic factors, namely tumor response, NLR, and biliary drainage requiring both PTCD and internal stenting for both PFS and OS. MLR was the only significant predictive factor for the tumor response. These findings could provide physicians with more information to justify the clinical outcomes in patients with advanced BTC in real-world practice.
The results of healthcare design should meet the requirements of design teams as well as healthcare stakeholders. However, misunderstandings that occur between the design teams and healthcare ...stakeholders when using 2D illustrations leads to the need for re-design and rework during the design phase. To overcome this problem, this study develops a Database-supported VR/BIM-based Communication and Simulation (DVBCS) system integrated with BIM, game engine and VR technologies for healthcare design special in the Semi-immersed VR environment. The DVBCS system is applied in a case study of a design project of a cancer center in Taiwan to verify the system and demonstrate its effectiveness in practice. The results demonstrate that a DVBCS system is an effective visual communication and simulation platform for healthcare design. The advantage of the DVBCS system lies not only in improving the communication efficiency between the design teams and healthcare stakeholders, but also in facilitating visual interactions and easing the decision-making process while communicating in the 3D VR/BIM environment. The effective use of the proposed DVBCS system will assist design teams and stakeholders significantly in systematically handling healthcare design work in future healthcare design.
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