Fast selective edge-enhanced imaging with topological chiral lamellar superstructures.

Edge detection is a fundamental operation for feature extraction in image processing. The all-optical method has aroused growing interest owing to its ultra-fast speed, low energy consumption and parallel computation. However, current optical edge detection methods are generally limited to static devices and fixed functionality.

Command of three-dimensional solitary waves via photopatterning.

Multidimensional solitons are prevalent in numerous research fields. In orientationally ordered soft matter system, three-dimensional director solitons exemplify the localized distortion of molecular orientation. However, their precise manipulation remains challenging due to unpredictable and uncontrolled generation.

Self-assembled liquid crystal architectures for soft matter photonics.

Self-assembled architectures of soft matter have fascinated scientists for centuries due to their unique physical properties originated from controllable orientational and/or positional orders, and diverse optic and photonic applications. If one could know how to design, fabricate, and manipulate these optical microstructures in soft matter systems, such as liquid crystals (LCs), that would open new opportunities in both scientific research and practical applications, such as the interaction between light and soft matter, the intrinsic assembly of the topological patterns, and the multidimensional control of the light (polarization, phase, spatial distribution, propagation direction). Here, we summarize recent progresses in self-assembled optical architectures in typical thermotropic LCs and bio-based lyotropic LCs.

Prevalence of pain in community-dwelling older adults with hypertension in the United States.

Hypertension and pain are both prevalent conditions in the older adult population. We aimed to report the prevalence of pain discomforts and investigated the association between hypertension and pain discomforts among older adults in the United States. Data from the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study were analyzed.

Subdomains within orientation columns of primary visual cortex.

In the mammalian visual system, early stages of visual form processing begin with orientation-selective neurons in primary visual cortex (V1). In many species (including humans, monkeys, tree shrews, cats, and ferrets), these neurons are organized in a beautifully arrayed pinwheel-like orientation columns, which shift in orientation preference across V1. However, to date, the relationship of orientation architecture to the encoding of multiple elemental aspects of visual contours is still unknown.

Improving color constancy by discounting the variation of camera spectral sensitivity.

It is an ill-posed problem to recover the true scene colors from a color biased image by discounting the effects of scene illuminant and camera spectral sensitivity (CSS) at the same time. Most color constancy (CC) models have been designed to first estimate the illuminant color, which is then removed from the color biased image to obtain an image taken under white light, without the explicit consideration of CSS effect on CC. This paper first studies the CSS effect on illuminant estimation arising in the inter-dataset-based CC (inter-CC), i.

Mapping and comparative proteomic analysis of the starch biosynthetic pathway in rice by 2D PAGE/MS.

Our results not only provide a comprehensive overview of the starch biosynthetic pathway in the developing endosperm but also reveal some important protein markers that regulate the synthesis of starch. In human diets, rice (Oryza sativa L.) is an important source of starch, a substantial amount of which is accumulated in developing endosperm.

A Unified Framework for Salient Structure Detection by Contour-Guided Visual Search.

We define the task of salient structure (SS) detection to unify the saliency-related tasks, such as fixation prediction, salient object detection, and detection of other structures of interest in cluttered environments. To solve such SS detection tasks, a unified framework inspired by the two-pathway-based search strategy of biological vision is proposed in this paper. First, a contour-based spatial prior (CBSP) is extracted based on the layout of edges in the given scene along a fast non-selective pathway, which provides a rough, task-irrelevant, and robust estimation of the locations where the potential SSs are present.

A Retinal Mechanism Inspired Color Constancy Model.

In this paper, we propose a novel model for the computational color constancy, inspired by the amazing ability of the human vision system (HVS) to perceive the color of objects largely constant as the light source color changes. The proposed model imitates the color processing mechanisms in the specific level of the retina, the first stage of the HVS, from the adaptation emerging in the layers of cone photoreceptors and horizontal cells (HCs) to the color-opponent mechanism and disinhibition effect of the non-classical receptive field in the layer of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). In particular, HC modulation provides a global color correction with cone-specific lateral gain control, and the following RGCs refine the processing with iterative adaptation until all the three opponent channels reach their stable states (i.

A Retina Inspired Model for Enhancing Visibility of Hazy Images.

The mammalian retina seems far smarter than scientists have believed so far. Inspired by the visual processing mechanisms in the retina, from the layer of photoreceptors to the layer of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), we propose a computational model for haze removal from a single input image, which is an important issue in the field of image enhancement. In particular, the bipolar cells serve to roughly remove the low-frequency of haze, and the amacrine cells modulate the output of cone bipolar cells to compensate the loss of details by increasing the image contrast.

Color Constancy Using Double-Opponency.

The double-opponent (DO) color-sensitive cells in the primary visual cortex (V1) of the human visual system (HVS) have long been recognized as the physiological basis of color constancy. In this work we propose a new color constancy model by imitating the functional properties of the HVS from the single-opponent (SO) cells in the retina to the DO cells in V1 and the possible neurons in the higher visual cortexes. The idea behind the proposed double-opponency based color constancy (DOCC) model originates from the substantial observation that the color distribution of the responses of DO cells to the color-biased images coincides well with the vector denoting the light source color.

Boundary detection using double-opponency and spatial sparseness constraint.

Brightness and color are two basic visual features integrated by the human visual system (HVS) to gain a better understanding of color natural scenes. Aiming to combine these two cues to maximize the reliability of boundary detection in natural scenes, we propose a new framework based on the color-opponent mechanisms of a certain type of color-sensitive double-opponent (DO) cells in the primary visual cortex (V1) of HVS. This type of DO cells has oriented receptive field with both chromatically and spatially opponent structure.

N-[4-(4,6-Dimethyl-2-pyrimidinyloxy)-3-methylphenyl]-N'-[2-(dimethylamino)] benzoylurea induces cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis in human cancer cells.

N-[4-(4,6-Dimethyl-2-pyrimidinyloxy)-3-methylphenyl]-N'-[2-(dimethylamino)]benzoylurea (SUD) is a novel synthesized benzoylurea derivative. We selected several human cancer cell lines to investigate whether SUD can inhibit the growth of cancer cells. We selected the liver cell line L-02 to investigate the effect of SUD on the normal cells.

Multifeature-based surround inhibition improves contour detection in natural images.

To effectively perform visual tasks like detecting contours, the visual system normally needs to integrate multiple visual features. Sufficient physiological studies have revealed that for a large number of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) of monkeys and cats, neuronal responses elicited by the stimuli placed within the classical receptive field (CRF) are substantially modulated, normally inhibited, when difference exists between the CRF and its surround, namely, non-CRF, for various local features. The exquisite sensitivity of V1 neurons to the center-surround stimulus configuration is thought to serve important perceptual functions, including contour detection.

Attentional blink is hierarchically modulated by phonological, morphological, semantic and lexical connections between two Chinese characters.

The ability to identify the second of two targets (T2) is impaired if that target is presented less than ∼500 ms after the first (T1). This transient deficit is known as attentional blink (AB). Previous studies have suggested that the magnitude of the AB effect can be modulated by manipulating the allocation of attentional resources to T1 or T2.

The spatial summation characteristics of three categories of V1 neurons differing in non-classical receptive field modulation properties.

The spatial summation of excitation and inhibition determines the final output of neurons in the cat V1. To characterize the spatial extent of the excitatory classical receptive field (CRF) and inhibitory non-classical receptive field (nCRF) areas, we examined the spatial summation properties of 169 neurons in cat V1 at high (20-90%) and low (5-15%) stimulus contrasts. Three categories were classified based on the difference in the contrast dependency of the surround suppression.

The detection of orientation continuity and discontinuity by cat V1 neurons.

The orientation tuning properties of the non-classical receptive field (nCRF or "surround") relative to that of the classical receptive field (CRF or "center") were tested for 119 neurons in the cat primary visual cortex (V1). The stimuli were concentric sinusoidal gratings generated on a computer screen with the center grating presented at an optimal orientation to stimulate the CRF and the surround grating with variable orientations stimulating the nCRF. Based on the presence or absence of surround suppression, measured by the suppression index at the optimal orientation of the cells, we subdivided the neurons into two categories: surround-suppressive (SS) cells and surround-non-suppressive (SN) cells.

An ensemble with the Chinese pentatonic scale using electroencephalogram from both hemispheres.

To listen to brain activity as a piece of music, we previously proposed scale-free brainwave music (SFBM) technology, which translated the scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) into musical notes according to the power law of both the EEG and music. In this study, the methodology was further extended to ensemble music on two channels from the two hemispheres. EEG data from two channels symmetrically located on the left and right hemispheres were translated into MIDI sequences by SFBM, and the EEG parameters modulated the pitch, duration and volume of each note.

Both lexical and non-lexical characters are processed during saccadic eye movements.

On average our eyes make 3-5 saccadic movements per second when we read, although their neural mechanism is still unclear. It is generally thought that saccades help redirect the retinal fovea to specific characters and words but that actual discrimination of information only occurs during periods of fixation. Indeed, it has been proposed that there is active and selective suppression of information processing during saccades to avoid experience of blurring due to the high-speed movement.

Interactions between surround suppression and interocular suppression in human vision.

Several types of suppression phenomena have been observed in the visual system. For example, the ability to detect a target stimulus is often impaired when the target is embedded in a high-contrast surround. This contextual modulation, known as surround suppression, was formerly thought to occur only in the periphery.

[Relationship of c-kit and platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha gene mutation features with prognosis of patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumor].

Objective: To explore the relationship between c-kit and platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha(PDGFRA) gene mutation features and the prognosis of gastrointestinal stromal tumor(GIST).

Methods: Clinicopathological, genetic testing and follow-up informations of patients admitted to the Shanxi Tumor Hospital from June 2000 to January 2009 were collected. The survival was calculated and univariate analysis was conducted using the Kaplan-Meier method.

Contrast-dependent variations in the excitatory classical receptive field and suppressive nonclassical receptive field of cat primary visual cortex.

In area V1 of cat and monkey, there is a surround region beyond the classical receptive field (CRF) which alone is unresponsive but may modulate the cell's response. This field is referred to as the "nonclassical receptive field" (nCRF). It has been reported in monkey that the extent of CRF and/or nCRF of V1 neurons is not fixed but varies with stimulus contrast.

[Pathological changes of rectal cancer after irinotecan, 5-fluorouracil or combined short-term radiotherapy].

Objective: To observe and evaluate the pathologic changes and curative effects of irinotecan (CPT-11), 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and combined short-term radiotherapy before low-set rectal cancer operation so as to provide a theoretic basis for formulating a new effective adjuvant therapeutic regimen.

Methods: A total of 41 patients of low rectal cancer were treated with CPT-11, 5-FU therapy or CPT-11 plus 5-FU combined short-term radiotherapy from April 2002 to April 2009. They were divided into 2 groups according to different treatment schemes, including irinotecan group (n = 18) and irinotecan combined short-term radiotherapy group (n = 23).