实时影像融合的超声虚拟导航技术联合射频消融术治疗原发性肝癌合并门静脉癌栓患者的疗效及对血清Bax、Cyfra21-1的影响

摘要 目的：探讨实时影像融合的超声虚拟导航技术联合射频消融术治疗原发性肝癌合并门静脉癌栓患者的疗效及对血清BCL-2同源的水溶性相关蛋白（Bax）、细胞角蛋白19片段（Cyfra21-1）的影响。方法：选择本院2017年1月到2021年4月收治的原发性肝癌合并门静脉癌栓患者82例作为研究对象,根据1：1随机数字表法将患者分为虚拟导航组与对照组各41例,虚拟导航组给予实时影像融合的超声虚拟导航技术联合射频消融术治疗,对照组给予单纯超声引导联合射频消融术治疗。结果：虚拟导航组的进针次数、融合时间、布针时间少于对照组（P<0.05）;虚拟导航组治疗后3个月的胆汁瘤、肝脓肿、膈肌损伤、肺部感染等并发症发生率为4.9 %,低于对照组的29.3 %（P<0.05）。虚拟导航组治疗后3个月的总有效率为82.9 %,高于对照组的51.2 %（P<0.05）。两组治疗后3个月的血清谷丙转氨酶（ALT）、谷草转氨酶（AST）水平低于治疗前,虚拟导航组低于对照组（P<0.05）。两组治疗后的血清Bax、Cyfra21-1含量低于治疗前,虚拟导航组低于对照组（P<0.05）。结论：实时影像融合的超声虚拟导航技术联合射频消融术治疗原发性肝癌合并门静脉癌栓能降低血清Bax、Cyfra21-1含量,改善患者的肝功能,提高消融效率,还可减少并发症的发生,最终提高患者的总体治疗效果。     

中国植物标本馆数字化发展的缩影——江苏省中国科学院植物研究所标本馆(NAS)

江苏省中国科学院植物研究所标本馆(NAS)是中国最早的植物标本馆之一,也是国内最早开展植物标本数字化的标本馆,其标本数字化发展经历了4个阶段: 20世纪80年代后期尝试的标本文字信息数字化的起步阶段; 20世纪90年代末的标本图像数字化和文字信息数字化规范阶段; 2004年以后的标本批量数字化与信息网络共享快速发展阶段; 2018年后的标本数字化信息维护与优化阶段。这一过程集中代表和反映了中国植物标本数字化的发展历程。此外,近年来开始了发掘和利用江苏植物标本的数字化信息工作,包括建设江苏省级数字植物标本馆、开发江苏省维管植物标本时空分布可视化系统、开展标本采集-入库过程数字化等。今后,将不断深化标本数字化的工作,以期形成有NAS特色的数字化植物标本馆。     

Tomographic PIV in a model of the left ventricle: 3D flow past biological and mechanical heart valves

Left ventricular flow is intrinsically complex, three-dimensional and unsteady. Its features are susceptible to cardiovascular pathology and treatment, in particular to surgical interventions involving the valves (mitral valve replacement). To improve our understanding of intraventricular fluid mechanics and the impact of various types of prosthetic valves thereon, we have developed a custom-designed versatile left ventricular phantom with anatomically realistic moving left ventricular membrane. A biological, a tilting disc and a bileaflet valve (in two different orientations) were mounted in the mitral position and tested under the same settings. To investigate 3D flow within the phantom, a four-view tomographic particle image velocimetry setup has been implemented. The results compare side-by-side the evolution of the 3D flow topology, vortical structures and kinetic energy in the left ventricle domain during the cardiac cycle. Except for the tilting disc valve, all tested prosthetic valves induced a crossed flow path, where the outflow crosses the inflow path, passing under the mitral valve. The biological valve shows a strong jet with a peak velocity about twice as high compared to all mechanical heart valves, which makes it easier to penetrate deeply into the cavity. Accordingly, the peak kinetic energy in the left ventricle in case of the biological valve is about four times higher than the mechanical heart valves. We conclude that the tomographic particle imaging velocimetry setup provides a useful ground truth measurement of flow features and allows a comparison of the effects of different valve types on left ventricular flow patterns.     

Development of a bioassay to assess resistance to Fusarium oxysporum (Schlecht.) in asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.)

Fusarium oxysporum is one of the major pathogens causing root and crown rot in asparagus. Breeding of cultivars resistant to F. oxysporum would be the most efficient strategy for pathogen control. In this study, a bioassay was developed for screening seedling resistance. The non‐destructive bioassay comprises inoculation with a highly aggressive F. oxysporum isolate, incubation in a climate chamber and quantification of disease symptoms by a digital image analysing system and a PTA‐ELISA. This bioassay is simple to implement and demonstrated high reproducibility. Subsequently, it was used to determine the resistance behaviour of 16 asparagus genotypes to F. oxysporum. The asparagus cultivars revealed different levels of susceptibility, whereas the wild relative A. densiflorus was confirmed to be resistant.     

Actin depolymerizing factor stabilizes an existing state of F-actin and can change the tilt of F-actin subunits

Proteins in the actin depolymerizing factor (ADF)/cofilin family are essential for rapid F-actin turnover, and most depolymerize actin in a pH-dependent manner. Complexes of human and plant ADF with F-actin at different pH were examined using electron microscopy and a novel method of image analysis for helical filaments. Although ADF changes the mean twist of actin, we show that it does this by stabilizing a preexisting F-actin angular conformation. In addition, ADF induces a large ( approximately 12 degrees ) tilt of actin subunits at high pH where filaments are readily disrupted. A second ADF molecule binds to a site on the opposite side of F-actin from that of the previously described ADF binding site, and this second site is only largely occupied at high pH. All of these states display a high degree of cooperativity that appears to be an integral part of F-actin.     

Is formation of visible channels in a phospholipid bilayer by botulinum neurotoxin type B sensitive to its disulfide?

Botulinum neurotoxin, produced by Clostridium botulinum as a approximately 150-kDa single-chain protein, is nicked proteolytically either endogenously or exogenously. The approximately 50- and approximately 100-kDa chains of the dichain molecule remain held together by an interchain disulfide bridge and noncovalent interactions. The neurotoxin binds to receptors of the target cell and is internalized by endocytosis. Thereafter, a portion of the neurotoxin, the approximately 50-kDa chain, escapes to the cytosol, where it blocks neurotransmitter release. Botulinum neurotoxin serotype B is released by the bacteria primarily as an unnicked single chain. We reduced this unnicked protein and used its binding to ganglioside in a lipid layer to produce helical tubular crystals of unnicked botulinum neurotoxin type B in its disulfide-reduced state. The helical arrangement of the neurotoxin allowed determination of the structure of the molecule using cryo-electron microscopy and image processing. The resulting model reveals that neurotoxin molecules formed loops extending out from the surface of the bilayer and bending toward a neighboring loop. Although channels have been seen with disulfide-linked neurotoxin (Schmid, Robinson, and DasGupta (1993) Direct visualization of botulinum neurotoxin-induced channels in phospholipid vesicles, Nature 364, 827-830), no channels were seen here, a finding which suggests that the reduced, unnicked neurotoxin is incapable of forming a visible channel.     

Mapping the spatial distribution of plant diversity indices in a tropical forest using multi-spectral satellite image classification and field measurements

The relationships among alpha and beta diversity indices, computed from 141 randomly sampled quadrats, and the vegetation classes obtained by multi-spectral satellite image classification, were used as a strategy for mapping plant diversity in a tropical landscape mosaic. A relatively high accuracy of the land cover map was revealed by the overall accuracy assessment and the Cohen's Kappa statistic. Species accumulation models were used to evaluate how representative the sample size was the different vegetation types. A standard one-way, between-subjects ANOVA confirmed a significant reduction of the within-class variance of plant diversity with respect to their total variance across the landscape. Computed uniformity indices, to assess the internal uniformity of vegetation classes on the diversity indices, confirmed the goodness of the mapped classes in stratifying variability of plant diversity. This allowed for the use of the mapped classes as spatial interpolators of plant diversity values for estimation and up-scaling purposes. Finally, it was revealed that the plant diversity of the landscape depends, to a large extent, on the diversity contained in the most mature forest class, which is also the most diverse community in the studied area. High and moderate beta diversity values between mature forests and both the secondary associations and the first stages of succession, respectively, indicated that there is a significant contribution to the diversity of the landscape by those vegetation classes.     

Gram-staining characterisation of activated sludge filamentous bacteria by automated colour analysis

An automated image analysis method has been developed for the monitoring of the Gram-staining characteristics of filamentous bacteria in activated sludge. The binary method of pixel classification agreed with manual estimation (level of correlation of 0.9 for Gram-positive bacteria). Its robustness has been assessed by repeatability tests. Population shifts in terms of Gram-staining characteristics have been monitored in laboratory-scale experiments with two feeding schedules using this technique.Revisions requested 22 September 2004; Revisions received 11 October 2004     

Image phase or amplitude? Rapid scene categorization is an amplitude-based process

Models of the visual cortex are based on image decomposition according to the Fourier spectrum (amplitude and phase). On one hand, it is commonly believed that phase information is necessary to identify a scene. On the other hand, it is known that complex cells of the visual cortex, the most numerous ones, code only the amplitude spectrum. This raises the question of knowing if these cells carry sufficient information to allow visual scene categorization. In this work, using the same experiments in computer simulation and in psychophysics, we provide arguments to show that the amplitude spectrum alone is sufficient for categorization task.