Experimental Investigation on the Influence of Crack Width of Asphalt Concrete on the Repair Effect of Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation.

The appearance of cracks is one of the reasons that affect the performance of asphalt pavement, and traditional repair methods have the potential problem of causing adverse effects on the environment. In this paper, an environmentally friendly method for asphalt concrete crack repair was investigated using microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP) for asphalt concrete cracks of different widths (0.5 mm, 1.

Causal Effects of Sleep Traits on Ischemic Stroke and Its Subtypes: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

Background: Unfavorable sleep habits have been linked with ischemic stroke in observational studies, but the causality remains unclear. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential causal role of three sleep traits, including sleep duration, insomnia, and chronotype, in ischemic stroke and its subtypes.

Methods: We conducted two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis using single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with sleep duration, insomnia, and chronotype as instruments to estimate causal associations with ischemic stroke and its subtypes, among 34,217 ischemic stroke cases and 406,111 controls from the MEGASTROKE consortium.

Single Image De-Hazing Using Globally Guided Image Filtering.

Local edge-preserving smoothing techniques such as guided image filtering (GIF) and weighted guided image filtering (WGIF) could not preserve fine structure. In this paper, a new globally guided image filtering (G-GIF) is introduced to overcome the problem. The G-GIF is composed of a global structure transfer filter and a global edge-preserving smoothing filter.

Detail-Enhanced Multi-Scale Exposure Fusion.

Multi-scale exposure fusion is an effective image enhancement technique for a high dynamic range (HDR) scene. In this paper, a new multi-scale exposure fusion algorithm is proposed to merge differently exposed low dynamic range (LDR) images by using the weighted guided image filter to smooth the Gaussian pyramids of weight maps for all the LDR images. Details in the brightest and darkest regions of the HDR scene are preserved better by the proposed algorithm without relative brightness change in the fused image.

[Acupotomy and acupuncture in the treatment of avascular necrosis of femoral head at the early and middle stages:a clinical randomized controlled trial].

Objective: To compare the efficacy difference between acupotomy and acupuncture in the treatment of avascular necrosis of femoral head at the early and middle stages.

Methods: The randomized controlled prospective study method was adopted. Sixty cases of avascular necrosis of femoral head at Ficat-ArletⅠto Ⅱ stages were randomized into an acupotomy group (32 cases) and an acupuncture group (28 cases) by the third part.

[Analysis of 43 cases of cesarean scar pregnancy treated with suction curettage under ultrasound guidance].

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and safety of transabdominal ultrasound-guided suction curettage to treat cesarean scar pregnancy (CSP) and investigate factors affecting prognosis of CSP.

Methods: This was a retrospective case study of 43 cases who were diagnosed as CSP and treated by suction curettage under transabdominal ultrasound guidance as an initial treatment of CSP in Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University over past 7 years (from 2007 to 2013); factors affecting prognosis of CSP were investigated.

Results: 39 of the 43 cases (91%) were successfully treated.

Edge-Preserving Decomposition-Based Single Image Haze Removal.

Single image haze removal is under-constrained, because the number of freedoms is larger than the number of observations. In this paper, a novel edge-preserving decomposition-based method is introduced to estimate transmission map for a haze image so as to design a single image haze removal algorithm from the Koschmiedars law without using any prior. In particular, weighted guided image filter is adopted to decompose simplified dark channel of the haze image into a base layer and a detail layer.

Weighted guided image filtering.

It is known that local filtering-based edge preserving smoothing techniques suffer from halo artifacts. In this paper, a weighted guided image filter (WGIF) is introduced by incorporating an edge-aware weighting into an existing guided image filter (GIF) to address the problem. The WGIF inherits advantages of both global and local smoothing filters in the sense that: 1) the complexity of the WGIF is O(N) for an image with N pixels, which is same as the GIF and 2) the WGIF can avoid halo artifacts like the existing global smoothing filters.

Selectively detail-enhanced fusion of differently exposed images with moving objects.

In this paper, we introduce an exposure fusion scheme for differently exposed images with moving objects. The proposed scheme comprises a ghost removal algorithm in a low dynamic range domain and a selectively detail-enhanced exposure fusion algorithm. The proposed ghost removal algorithm includes a bidirectional normalization-based method for the detection of nonconsistent pixels and a two-round hybrid method for the correction of nonconsistent pixels.

Hybrid patching for a sequence of differently exposed images with moving objects.

It is very challenging to synthesize a high dynamic range (HDR) image from multiple differently exposed low dynamic range images when there are moving objects in the images. This is due to the fact that the moving objects will cause ghosting artifacts to appear in the synthesized HDR image. To prevent such artifacts, a patching algorithm is required to correct motion regions such that all the moving objects are synchronized in the differently exposed images.

[Lung metastasis of human choriocarcinoma in mice: establishment of experimental metastatic model and its biological characteristics].

Objective: To establish a satisfactory lung metastasis model of human choriocarcinoma using severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice and explore the appropriate cell concentration for the model.

Methods: Forty SCID mice aged between 5 - 6 weeks were randomly divided into four groups. 1 × 10(7) cells/ml × 0.

[Monitoring of methotrexate concentrations in lung and other tissues of rat through internal iliac artery infusion].

Objective: To establish the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for measuring concentrations of methotrexate (MTX) in rat lung and some other tissues through internal iliac artery infusion.

Methods: Fifty female Sprague-Dawley rats were included in this study. The rats were randomly assigned to two groups.