Extraction methods, structural characteristics, biological activities, and applications of the polysaccharides from Gracilaria lemaneiformis: A review.

Gracilaria/Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis is an ecologically and economically valuable seaweed that has attracted attention for its unique flavour and rich nutritional content. Studies have shown that G. lemaneiformis contains a variety of chemical components, among which G.

Changes of the peripapillary vascular parameters in premature infants without retinopathy of prematurity using U-net segmentation.

Aim: To quantitatively assess the changes in mean vascular tortuosity (mVT) and mean vascular width (mVW) around the optic disc and their correlation with gestational age (GA) and birth weight (BW) in premature infants without retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).

Methods: A single-center retrospective study included a total of 133 (133 eyes) premature infants [mean corrected gestational age (CGA) 43.6wk] without ROP as the premature group and 130 (130 eyes) CGA-matched full-term infants as the control group.

Oxidative stress mediated decrement of spinal endomorphin-2 contributes to lumbar disc herniation sciatica in rats.

Increasing evidence supported that oxidative stress induced by herniated lumbar disc played important role in the formation of lumbar disc herniation sciatica (LDHS), however, the neural mechanisms underlying LDHS need further clarification. Endomorphin-2 (EM2) is the endogenous ligand for mu-opioid receptor (MOR), and there is increasing evidence implicating the involvement of spinal EM2 in neuropathic pain. In this study, using an nucleus pulposus implantation induced LDHS rat model that displayed obvious mechanical allodynia, it was found that the expression of EM2 in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) and spinal cord was significantly decreased.

SpeechMirror: A Multimodal Visual Analytics System for Personalized Reflection of Online Public Speaking Effectiveness.

As communications are increasingly taking place virtually, the ability to present well online is becoming an indispensable skill. Online speakers are facing unique challenges in engaging with remote audiences. However, there has been a lack of evidence-based analytical systems for people to comprehensively evaluate online speeches and further discover possibilities for improvement.

Fine-Grained Video Retrieval With Scene Sketches.

Benefiting from the intuitiveness and naturalness of sketch interaction, sketch-based video retrieval (SBVR) has received considerable attention in the video retrieval research area. However, most existing SBVR research still lacks the capability of accurate video retrieval with fine-grained scene content. To address this problem, in this paper we investigate a new task, which focuses on retrieving the target video by utilizing a fine-grained storyboard sketch depicting the scene layout and major foreground instances' visual characteristics (e.

Vascular features around the optic disc in familial exudative vitreoretinopathy: findings and their relationship to disease severity.

Background: Familial exudative vitreoretinopathy (FEVR) is a rare congenital disorder of retinal vascular development. We aimed to study the vascular characteristics around the optic disc in neonates with FEVR and the relationship with disease severity.

Methods: A retrospective, case-control study including 43 (58 eyes) newborn patients with FEVR at stages 1 to 3 and 30 (53 eyes) age-matched normal full-term newborns was conducted.

SceneSketcher-v2: Fine-Grained Scene-Level Sketch-Based Image Retrieval Using Adaptive GCNs.

Sketch-based image retrieval (SBIR) is a long-standing research topic in computer vision. Existing methods mainly focus on category-level or instance-level image retrieval. This paper investigates the fine-grained scene-level SBIR problem where a free-hand sketch depicting a scene is used to retrieve desired images.

E-ffective: A Visual Analytic System for Exploring the Emotion and Effectiveness of Inspirational Speeches.

What makes speeches effective has long been a subject for debate, and until today there is broad controversy among public speaking experts about what factors make a speech effective as well as the roles of these factors in speeches. Moreover, there is a lack of quantitative analysis methods to help understand effective speaking strategies. In this paper, we propose E-ffective, a visual analytic system allowing speaking experts and novices to analyze both the role of speech factors and their contribution in effective speeches.

Weakly Supervised Learning for Single Depth-Based Hand Shape Recovery.

Recent emerging technologies such AR/VR and HCI are drawing high demand on more comprehensive hand shape understanding, requiring not only 3D hand skeleton pose but also hand shape geometry. In this paper, we propose a deep learning framework to produce 3D hand shape from a single depth image. To address the challenge that capturing ground truth 3D hand shape in the training dataset is non-trivial, we leverage synthetic data to construct a statistical hand shape model and adopt weak supervision from widely accessible hand skeleton pose annotation.

Study on the wound healing, anti-inflammation and anti-bacterial activities of Jinjianling cream: A Chinese herbal compound.

The aim of the present study was the healing effect and anti-inflammatory effect of Jinjianling cream on skin lesions and to investigate the antibacterial activity in vitro, which proved that the preparation is safe and effective. The mouse scald model was established to observe the wound healing time and wound healing rate of mice, serum levels of TNF-α and IL-1 were measured by the ELISA method. The model of eczema in mice was induced by DNCB, and the degree of ear swelling in mice was calculated.

microRNA-221 restricts human cytomegalovirus replication via promoting type I IFN production by targeting SOCS1/NF-κB pathway.

HCMV is a common pathogen for human with relatively high prevalence, which could be life-threatened in immunodeficient patients and lead to significant birth defects in newborns. In this study, we firstly report that HCMV infection significantly enhances the expression of microRNA-221 (miR-221) in Neural Precursor Cells (NPCs). We found that miR-221 directly targets at the 3'-UTR of suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 (SOCS1) and suppresses SOCS1 expression at the both mRNA and protein levels.

Excavating Anticonvulsant Compounds from Prescriptions of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Treatment of Epilepsy.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a long history and been widely used in prevention and treatment of epilepsy in China. This paper is intended to review the advances in the active anticonvulsant compounds isolated from herbs in the prescription of TCM in the treatment of epilepsy. These compounds were introduced with the details including classification, CAS number specific structure and druggability data.

A Visual Analytics Approach for Station-Based Air Quality Data.

With the deployment of multi-modality and large-scale sensor networks for monitoring air quality, we are now able to collect large and multi-dimensional spatio-temporal datasets. For these sensed data, we present a comprehensive visual analysis approach for air quality analysis. This approach integrates several visual methods, such as map-based views, calendar views, and trends views, to assist the analysis.

Co-loaded proteinase K/thyme oil liposomes for inactivation of Escherichia coli O157:H7 biofilms on cucumber.

E. coli O157:H7 is a bacterium frequently found on vegetable surfaces, such as cucumber, that can pose a significant threat to consumers. In the present work, proteinase K (PK) and thyme oil (TO) were used to inactivate E.

Graphene sheets, polyaniline and AuNPs based DNA sensor for electrochemical determination of BCR/ABL fusion gene with functional hairpin probe.

A sensitive and selective electrochemical DNA sensor was developed for the detection of BCR/ABL fusion gene in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Firstly, graphene sheets (GS) suspension was prepared with the aid of chitosan (CS) solution and then fabricated onto the glassy carbon electrode (GCE), followed by the electro-polymerization of aniline to form the PANI layer, then, Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) were electro-deposited onto the modified GCE to immobilize the capture probes. The capture probe employed a hairpin structure and dually labeled with a 5'-SH and a 3'-biotin.

MultisHRP-DNA-coated CMWNTs as signal labels for an ultrasensitive hepatitis C virus core antigen electrochemical immunosensor.

An ultrasensitive and selective electrochemical immunosensor was developed for the detection of hepatitis C virus (HCV) core antigen. The immunosensor consists of graphitized mesoporous carbon-methylene blue (GMCs-MB) nanocomposite as an electrode modified material and a horseradish peroxidase-DNA-coated carboxyl multi-wall carbon nanotubes (CMWNTs) as a secondary antibody layer. After modification of the electrode with GMCs-MB nanocomposite, Au nanoparticles were electrodeposited on to the electrode to immobilize the captured antibodies.

Ultrasensitive electrochemical immunosensor for HE4 based on rolling circle amplification.

A novel electrochemical immunoassay system for the detection of human epididymis-specific protein 4 (HE4) was developed. A chitosan-titanium carbide (TiC) nanocomposition film was first electrodeposited onto a tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) electrode at a constant potential. Gold (Au) nanoparticles were then electrodeposited on the surface of the chitosan-TiC film by cyclic voltammetry (CV).

EasyToy: plush toy design using editable sketching curves.

EasyToy is an industrial plush toy design system for novices. Editable sketching curves combine the advantages of free-form strokes and the controllability of B-spline curves. Users can continuously edit each curve to refine designs.