SegRap2023: A benchmark of organs-at-risk and gross tumor volume Segmentation for Radiotherapy Planning of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma.

Radiation therapy is a primary and effective treatment strategy for NasoPharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC). The precise delineation of Gross Tumor Volumes (GTVs) and Organs-At-Risk (OARs) is crucial in radiation treatment, directly impacting patient prognosis. Despite that deep learning has achieved remarkable performance on various medical image segmentation tasks, its performance on OARs and GTVs of NPC is still limited, and high-quality benchmark datasets on this task are highly desirable for model development and evaluation.

CADS: A Self-supervised Learner via Cross-modal Alignment and Deep Self-distillation for CT Volume Segmentation.

Self-supervised learning (SSL) has long had great success in advancing the field of annotation-efficient learning. However, when applied to CT volume segmentation, most SSL methods suffer from two limitations, including rarely using the information acquired by different imaging modalities and providing supervision only to the bottleneck encoder layer. To address both limitations, we design a pretext task to align the information in each 3D CT volume and the corresponding 2D generated X-ray image and extend self-distillation to deep self-distillation.

TriLA: Triple-Level Alignment Based Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Joint Segmentation of Optic Disc and Optic Cup.

Cross-domain joint segmentation of optic disc and optic cup on fundus images is essential, yet challenging, for effective glaucoma screening. Although many unsupervised domain adaptation (UDA) methods have been proposed, these methods can hardly achieve complete domain alignment, leading to suboptimal performance. In this paper, we propose a triple-level alignment (TriLA) model to address this issue by aligning the source and target domains at the input level, feature level, and output level simultaneously.

Structural insight into the subclass B1 metallo-β-lactamase AFM-1.

The emergence of drug-resistant bacteria, facilitated by metallo-beta-lactamases (MBLs), presents a significant obstacle to the effective use of antibiotics in the management of clinical drug-resistant bacterial infections. AFM-1 is a MBL derived from Alcaligenes faecalis and shares 86% homology with the NDM-1 family. Both AFM-1 and NDM-1 demonstrate the ability to hydrolyze ampicillin and other β-lactam antibiotics, however, their substrate affinities vary, and the specific reason for this variation remains unknown.

ReFs: A hybrid pre-training paradigm for 3D medical image segmentation.

Self-supervised learning (SSL) has achieved remarkable progress in medical image segmentation. The application of an SSL algorithm often follows a two-stage training process: using unlabeled data to perform label-free representation learning and fine-tuning the pre-trained model on the downstream tasks. One issue of this paradigm is that the SSL step is unaware of the downstream task, which may lead to sub-optimal feature representation for a target task.

Incidence, clearance, and factors associated with anal human papilloma virus infection among men with HIV.

Objectives: This study aims to estimate the incidence and persistence/clearance of anal human papilloma virus (HPV) infection and related factors among men with HIV in Taizhou, China.

Design: A prospective cohort study.

Methods: Men with HIV were recruited and followed up from 2016 to 2021.

MFI-Net: Multiscale Feature Interaction Network for Retinal Vessel Segmentation.

Segmentation of retinal vessels on fundus images plays a critical role in the diagnosis of micro-vascular and ophthalmological diseases. Although being extensively studied, this task remains challenging due to many factors including the highly variable vessel width and poor vessel-background contrast. In this paper, we propose a multiscale feature interaction network (MFI-Net) for retinal vessel segmentation, which is a U-shaped convolutional neural network equipped with the pyramid squeeze-and-excitation (PSE) module, coarse-to-fine (C2F) module, deep supervision, and feature fusion.

A PrEP Demonstration Project Using eHealth and Community Outreach to Justice-Involved Cisgender Women and Their Risk Networks.

Women involved in criminal justice systems (WICJ) are a key population at risk for HIV, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is critical for HIV prevention. This project was designed to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of delivering PrEP via eHealth to WICJ and members of their risk network (RN). We recruited HIV-negative cisgender WICJ index participants (n = 38) and risk network (RN) members (n = 67) using modified respondent-driven sampling.

Increased CD4 T cell count is associated with lower anal human papillomavirus prevalence among HIV-positive male cohort in Taizhou, China: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the association between CD4 T cell count and combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) with the prevalence of anal human papillomavirus (HPV) infection among HIV-positive male cohort in China.

Methods: A survey was conducted in men from a HIV cohort in Taizhou, China between 2016 and 2019. A face-to-face questionnaire interview was administered, and an anal-canal swab was collected for HPV genotyping.

Quantification of prostaglandins E and D using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in a mouse ear edema model.

A sensitive, specific, and accurate high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the quantification of prostaglandins D2 (PGD2) and E2 (PGE2) in a mouse ear edema model. We used activated charcoal to obtain PG-free ear samples. The chromatographic separation was performed using a Hypersil Gold C18 column.

Study on the Relationships between Microscopic Cross-Linked Network Structure and Properties of Cyanate Ester Self-Reinforced Composites.

Bisphenol A dicyanate (BADCy) resin microparticles were prepared by precipitation polymerization synthesis and were homogeneously dispersed in a BADCy prepolymer matrix to prepare a BADCy self-reinforced composites. The active functional groups of the BADCy resin microparticles were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The results of an FT-IR curve showed that the BADCy resin microparticles had a triazine ring functional group and also had an active reactive group -OCN, which can initiate a reaction with the matrix.

A further insight into the adsorption mechanism of protein on hydroxyapatite by FTIR-ATR spectrometry.

The adsorption mechanism of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on hydroxyapatite (HA) for different time intervals has been studied by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR)-attenuated total internal reflectance (ATR) spectrometry in this paper. The difference spectra obtained in HA and BSA frequency regions demonstrate that the binding of PO, from the phosphate (PO) of HA, to the hydrogen of methyl (-CH), methene (-CH) and amideII (-CNH) in the protein appears to be much faster and stronger than that of the PO group. In addition, Ca must serve as a key role in the interaction of BSA with HA.

A further insight into the biosorption mechanism of Au(III) by infrared spectrometry.

Background: The interactions of microbes with metal ions form an important basis for our study of biotechnological applications. Despite the recent progress in studying some properties of Au(III) adsorption and reduction by Bacillus megatherium D01 biomass, there is still a need for additional data on the molecular mechanisms of biosorbents responsible for their interactions with Au(III) to have a further insight and to make a better exposition.

Results: The biosorption mechanism of Au(III) onto the resting cell of Bacillus megatherium D01 biomass on a molecular level has been further studied here.

Alpha-synuclein functions as a negative regulator for expression of tyrosine hydroxylase.

Previous studies have shown that over-expression of alpha-Synuclein (alpha-Syn), a protein whose abnormality is implicated in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD), reduces tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression and dopamine synthesis. To explore the possible mechanism for the regulation of TH expression by alpha-Syn, luciferase reporter gene carrying a -493/+27bp fragment of human TH gene (pGL3-TH520) and pcDNA carrying halpha-Syn gene (pcDNA-halpha-Syn) were co-transfected into T293 cells. The results showed that alpha-Syn was only detected in pcDNA-halpha-Syn-transfected cells but not in pcDNA vector control cells.

A further insight into the biosorption mechanism of Pt(IV) by infrared spectrometry.

Background: Platinum nanomaterial is one of the significant noble metal catalysts, and the interaction of platinum with microbe is one of the key factors in influencing the size and the distribution of the platinum nanoparticles on the microbial biomass. Some properties of Pt(IV) adsorption and reduction by resting cells of Bacillus megatherium D01 biomass have once been investigated, still the mechanism active in the platinum biosorption remains to be seen and requires further elucidating.

Result: A further insight into the biosorption mechanism of Pt(IV) onto resting cells of Bacillus megatherium D02 biomass on a molecular level has been obtained.