Transplantation of NEP1-40 and NT-3 Gene-Co-Transduced Neural Stem Cells Improves Function and Neurogenesis after Spinal Cord Injury in a Rat Model.

Background: Spinal cord injury (SCI) generally results in necrosis, scarring, cavitation, and a release of inhibitory molecules of the nervous system, which lead to disruption of neurotransmission and impede nerve fiber regeneration. This study was intended to evaluate the therapeutic efficacy rates of the transplantation of NEP- and NT-3 gene-co-transduced neural stem cells (NSCs) in a rat model of SCI.

Methods: Ninety Sprague-Dawley rats were subdivided randomly into six groups: sham-operated, SCI model, SCI + NSCs-NC, SCI + NEP-NSCs, SCI + NT-3-NSCs, and SCI + NEP/NT-3-NSCs.

Clinical algorithm for preventing missed diagnoses of occult cervical spine instability after acute trauma: A case report.

Background: Missed or delayed diagnosis of cervical spine instability after acute trauma can have catastrophic consequences for the patient, resulting in severe neurological impairment. Currently, however, there is no consensus on the optimal strategy for diagnosing occult cervical spine instability. Thus, we present a case of occult cervical spine instability and provide a clinical algorithm to aid physicians in diagnosing occult instability of the cervical spine.

Predictive ability of pharyngeal inlet angle for the occurrence of postoperative dysphagia after occipitocervical fusion.

Background: PIA has been proven to be a predictor for postoperative dysphagia in patients who undergo occipitospinal fusion. However, its predictive effect for postoperative dysphagia in patients who undergo OCF is unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the predictive ability of the pharyngeal inlet angle (PIA) for the occurrence of postoperative dysphagia in patients who undergo occipitocervical fusion (OCF).

Loss of Correction After Removal of Spinal Implants in Congenital Scoliosis.

Background: Previous studies have reported the progression of deformity in patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis after implant removal. However, for patients with congenital scoliosis, few studies have investigated the prognosis after implant removal.

Methods: We observed 24 patients with congenital scoliosis, who underwent implant removal, for at least 3 years.

Predictive abilities of O-C2a and O-EAa for the development of postoperative dysphagia in patients undergoing occipitocervical fusion.

Background Context: Dysphagia is a common postoperative complication in patients undergoing occipitocervical fusion (OCF). Previous studies had proposed the use of two measures-the occipital to C2 angle (O-C2a) and the occipital and external acoustic meatus to axis angle (O-EAa)-to predict postoperative dysphagia after OCF. However, these studies had small sample sizes and the predictive abilities of both measures are still not clear.

[Biomechanical study of the stability of subaxial cervical anterior transpedicular screw fixation for three-column injury].

Objective: To compare the stability of subaxial cervical anterior transpedicular screw(ATPS) fixation and three traditional fixations for three-column injury.

Methods: Six specimens of cervical spine were prepared. After measurememt of the range of motion(ROM) in intact state, the specimens were made into three-column injury models.

Micro-Expression Recognition Using Color Spaces.

Micro-expressions are brief involuntary facial expressions that reveal genuine emotions and, thus, help detect lies. Because of their many promising applications, they have attracted the attention of researchers from various fields. Recent research reveals that two perceptual color spaces (CIELab and CIELuv) provide useful information for expression recognition.

A General Exponential Framework for Dimensionality Reduction.

As a general framework, Laplacian embedding, based on a pairwise similarity matrix, infers low dimensional representations from high dimensional data. However, it generally suffers from three issues: 1) algorithmic performance is sensitive to the size of neighbors; 2) the algorithm encounters the well known small sample size (SSS) problem; and 3) the algorithm de-emphasizes small distance pairs. To address these issues, here we propose exponential embedding using matrix exponential and provide a general framework for dimensionality reduction.

Fusion tensor subspace transformation framework.

Tensor subspace transformation, a commonly used subspace transformation technique, has gained more and more popularity over the past few years because many objects in the real world can be naturally represented as multidimensional arrays, i.e. tensors.

Inferring gene regulatory networks by singular value decomposition and gravitation field algorithm.

Reconstruction of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) is of utmost interest and has become a challenge computational problem in system biology. However, every existing inference algorithm from gene expression profiles has its own advantages and disadvantages. In particular, the effectiveness and efficiency of every previous algorithm is not high enough.

Improved gravitation field algorithm and its application in hierarchical clustering.

Background: Gravitation field algorithm (GFA) is a new optimization algorithm which is based on an imitation of natural phenomena. GFA can do well both for searching global minimum and multi-minima in computational biology. But GFA needs to be improved for increasing efficiency, and modified for applying to some discrete data problems in system biology.

Sparse tensor discriminant color space for face verification.

As one of the fundamental features, color provides useful information and plays an important role for face recognition. Generally, the choice of a color space is different for different visual tasks. How can a color space be sought for the specific face recognition problem? To address this problem, we propose a sparse tensor discriminant color space (STDCS) model that represents a color image as a third-order tensor in this paper.

Tensor discriminant color space for face recognition.

Recent research efforts reveal that color may provide useful information for face recognition. For different visual tasks, the choice of a color space is generally different. How can a color space be sought for the specific face recognition problem? To address this problem, this paper represents a color image as a third-order tensor and presents the tensor discriminant color space (TDCS) model.

Gravitation field algorithm and its application in gene cluster.

Background: Searching optima is one of the most challenging tasks in clustering genes from available experimental data or given functions. SA, GA, PSO and other similar efficient global optimization methods are used by biotechnologists. All these algorithms are based on the imitation of natural phenomena.

Pep-3D-Search: a method for B-cell epitope prediction based on mimotope analysis.

Background: The prediction of conformational B-cell epitopes is one of the most important goals in immunoinformatics. The solution to this problem, even if approximate, would help in designing experiments to precisely map the residues of interaction between an antigen and an antibody. Consequently, this area of research has received considerable attention from immunologists, structural biologists and computational biologists.