bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Laparoscopic surgery for repeated cecal volvulus with intestinal malrotation: A case report
Authors: Abe Shinya , Tamura Noriyasu , Hamasaki Shunsuke , Umetani Naoyuki 
Published: November 2019

AbstractThis is the first report of laparoscopic surgery for an advanced‐age patient with cecal volvulus accompanied by intestinal malrotation. A 96‐year‐old woman who had previously undergone laparotomy for cecal volvulus underwent emergency laparoscopic surgery for recurrent volvulus. Because the cecum was about to rupture but not ischemic, we untwist the intestinal volvulus and fixed the cecum to the abdominal wall with a single suture. Five days after the surgery, the volvulus between the suture and the hepatic flexure of the colon recurred. We performed a second laparoscopic surgery in which we fixed the right side of the colon to the abdominal wall after diagnosing intestinal malrotation. Given its positioning, the sign of malrotation would not have been visible on preoperative CT images. As shown by this case, intestinal malrotation might lie behind the repeated cecal volvulus, and laparoscopic surgery may be a good option for volvulus with intestinal malrotation, even in cases with obstruction.
Aberrant structural covariance networks in youth at high familial risk for mood disorder
Authors: Heinze Kareen , Shen Xueyi , Hawkins Emma , Harris Mathew A. , de Nooij Laura , McIntosh Andrew M. , Wood Stephen J. , Whalley Heather C. 
Published: November 2019

AbstractObjectivesCurrent research suggests significant disruptions in functional brain networks in individuals with mood disorder, and in those at familial risk. Studies of structural brain networks provide important insights into synchronized maturational change but have received less attention. We aimed to investigate developmental relationships of large‐scale brain networks in mood disorder using structural covariance (SC) analyses.MethodsWe conducted SC analysis of baseline structural imaging data from 121 at the time of scanning unaffected high risk (HR) individuals (29 later developed mood disorder after a median time of 4.95 years), and 89 healthy controls (C‐well) with no familial risk from the Scottish Bipolar Family Study (age 15‐27, 64% female). Voxel‐wise analyses of covariance were conducted to compare the associations between each seed region in visual, auditory, motor, speech, semantic, executive‐control, salience and default‐mode networks and the whole brain signal. SC maps were compared for (a) HR(all) versus C‐well individuals, and (b) between those who remained well (HR‐well), versus those who subsequently developed mood disorder (HR‐MD), and C‐well.ResultsThere were no significant differences between HR(all) and C‐well individuals. On splitting the HR group based on subsequent clinical outcome, the HR‐MD group however displayed greater baseline SC in the salience and executive‐control network, and HR‐well individuals showed less SC in the salience network, compared to C‐well, respectively (P < .001).ConclusionsThese findings indicate differences in network‐level inter‐regional relationships, especially within the salience network, which precede onset of mood disorder in those at familial risk.
Order‐restricted inference for clustered ROC data with application to fingerprint matching accuracy
Authors: Zhang Wei , Tang Larry L. , Li Qizhai , Liu Aiyi , Lee Mei‐Ling Ting 
Published: November 2019

AbstractReceiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is commonly used to evaluate and compare the accuracy of classification methods or markers. Estimating ROC curves has been an important problem in various fields including biometric recognition and diagnostic medicine. In real applications, classification markers are often developed under two or more ordered conditions, such that a natural stochastic ordering exists among the observations. Incorporating such a stochastic ordering into estimation can improve statistical efficiency (Davidov and Herman, 2012). In addition, clustered and correlated data arise when multiple measurements are gleaned from the same subject, making estimation of ROC curves complicated due to within‐cluster correlations. In this article, we propose to model the ROC curve using a weighted empirical process to jointly account for the order constraint and within‐cluster correlation structure. The algebraic properties of resulting summary statistics of the ROC curve such as its area and partial area are also studied. The algebraic expressions reduce to the ones by Davidov and Herman (2012) for independent observations. We derive asymptotic properties of the proposed order‐restricted estimators and show that they have smaller mean‐squared errors than the existing estimators. Simulation studies also demonstrate better performance of the newly proposed estimators over existing methods for finite samples. The proposed method is further exemplified with the fingerprint matching data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Database 4.
PO‐322 exerts potent immunosuppressive effects in vitro and in vivo by selectively inhibiting SGK1 activity
Authors: Lai Yi , Luo Xing‐Yan , Guo Hui‐Jie , Wang Si‐Yu , Xiong Jing , Yang Shu‐Xia , Li Li‐Mei , Zou Qiang , Mo Chun‐Fen , Wang Yan‐Tang , Liu Yang 
Published: November 2019

Background and PurposeImmunosuppressive drugs have shown great promise in treating autoimmune diseases in recent years. A series of novel oxazole derivatives were screened for their immunosuppressive activity. PO‐322 [1H‐indole‐2,3‐dione 3‐(1,3‐benzoxazol‐2‐ylhydrazone)] was identified as the most effective of these compounds. Here, we have investigated the mechanism(s) underlying the inhibition of T‐cell proliferation in vitro by PO‐322, as well as its effects on the delayed‐type hypersensitivity (DTH) response and imiquimod‐induced dermatitis in vivo.Experimental ApproachT‐cell proliferation and apoptosis were analysed with flow cytometry. Cell viability was assessed with a CCK‐8 assay. Protein kinase activity was assessed by SelectScreen Kinase Profiling Services. The phosphorylation of signal‐regulated molecules was measured by Western blot. Cytokine levels were determined by elisa. The effect of PO‐322 on DTH and imiquimod‐induced dermatitis was evaluated in BALB/c mice.Key ResultsPO‐322 inhibited human T‐cell proliferation with anti‐CD3/anti‐CD28 mAbs or alloantigen without significant cytotoxicity. Importantly, PO‐322 was a selective inhibitor of the serum‐ and glucocorticoid‐regulated kinase 1 (SGK1) and decreased NDRG1 phosphorylation but not p70S6K, STAT5, Akt, or ERK1/2 phosphorylation. Furthermore, PO‐322 inhibited IFN‐γ, IL‐6, and IL‐17 expression but not IL‐10 expression. Finally, treatment with PO‐322 was safe and effective for ameliorating the DTH response and imiquimod‐induced dermatitis in mice.Conclusions and ImplicationsPO‐322 exerted immunosuppressive activity in vitro and in vivo by selectively inhibiting SGK1 activity. PO‐322 represents a potential lead compound for the design and development of new drugs for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
Protection for maturing industries: Evidence from Canadian trade patterns and trade policy, 1870–1913
Authors: Keay Ian 
Published: November 2019

AbstractAs industries mature, experience is accumulated, productivity increases, trade performance improves on domestic and international markets and learning potential dissipates. Using theory‐consistent empirical specifications, I find a strong, robust negative relationship linking tariff rates to trade performance for manufactured products that matured during the first decade after Canada prioritized protectionist policy objectives in 1879. This relationship also holds at a more aggregate industry level, where I can use other measures of maturity, control for import penetration, use historically contemporaneous trade elasticity estimates, link trade performance to trade restrictiveness and effective rates of protection and where I can instrument for import penetration and trade performance using a two‐stage IV–GMM estimation approach. The results suggest that after 1890 the Canadian government carefully cut tariffs on products produced by maturing Canadian producers and this retreat from protectionism significantly lowered the static deadweight losses resulting from Canadian trade policy during the post‐1890 period.
Kinase activity of ERBB3 contributes to intestinal organoids growth and intestinal tumorigenesis
Authors: Nguyen Anh Thai‐Quynh , Lee So‐young , Chin Hyun Jung , Le Quy Van‐Chanh , Lee Daekee 
Published: November 2019

AbstractAs a member of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family, ERBB3 plays an essential role in development and disease independent of inherently inactive kinase domain. Recently, ERBB3 has been found to bind to ATP and has catalytic activity in vitro. However, the biological function of ERBB3 kinase activity remains elusive in vivo. Here we have identified the physiological function of inactivated ERBB3 kinase activity by creating Erbb3‐K740M knockin mice in which ATP cannot bind to ERBB3. Unlike Erbb3 knockout mice, kinase‐inactive Erbb3K740M homozygous mice were born in Mendelian ratios and showed normal development. After dextran sulfate sodium‐induced colitis, the kinase‐inactive Erbb3 mutant mice showed normal recovery. However, the outgrowth of ileal organoids by neuregulin‐1 treatment was more attenuated in Erbb3 mutant mice than in WT mice. Moreover, in combination with the ApcMin mouse, the proportion of polyps less than 1 mm in diameter in mutant mice was higher than in control mice and an increase in the number of apoptotic cells was observed in polyps from mutant mice compared with polyps from control mice. Taken together, the ERBB3 kinase activity contributes to the outgrowth of ileal organoids and intestinal tumorigenesis, and the development of ERBB3 kinase inhibitors, including epidermal growth factor receptor family members, can be a potential way to target colorectal cancer.
Making Sense of Number Words and Arabic Digits: Does Order Count More?
Authors: Sella Francesco , Lucangeli Daniela , Cohen Kadosh Roi , Zorzi Marco 
Published: November 2019

The ability to choose the larger between two numbers reflects a mature understanding of the magnitude associated with numerical symbols. The present study explores how the knowledge of the number sequence and memory capacity (verbal and visuospatial) relate to number comparison skills while controlling for cardinal knowledge. Preschool children’s (N = 140, Mage‐in‐months = 58.9, range = 41–75) knowledge of the directional property of the counting list as well as the spatial mapping of digits on the visual line were assessed. The ability to order digits on the visual line mediated the relation between memory capacity and number comparison skills while controlling for cardinal knowledge. Beyond cardinality, the knowledge of the (spatial) order of numbers marks the understanding of the magnitude associated with numbers.
Real‐Time Analytic Antialiased Text for 3‐D Environments
Authors: Ellis A. , Hunt W. , Hart J. 
Published: November 2019

AbstractText is a crucial component of 3‐D environments and virtual worlds for user interfaces and wayfinding. Implementing text using standard antialiased texture mapping leads to blurry and illegible writing which hinders usability and navigation. While super‐sampling removes some of these artifacts, distracting artifacts can still impede legibility, especially for recent high‐resolution head‐mounted displays. We propose an analytic antialiasing technique that efficiently computes the coverage of text glyphs, over pixel footprints, designed to run at real‐time rates. It decomposes glyphs into piecewise‐biquadratics and trapezoids that can be quickly area‐integrated over a pixel footprint to provide crisp legible antialiased text, even when mapped onto an arbitrary surface in a 3‐D virtual environment.
Figure Skating Simulation from Video
Authors: Yu Ri , Park Hwangpil , Lee Jehee 
Published: November 2019

AbstractFigure skating is one of the most popular ice sports at the Winter Olympic Games. The skaters perform several skating skills to express the beauty of the art on ice. Skating involves moving on ice while wearing skate shoes with thin blades; thus, it requires much practice to skate without losing balance. Moreover, figure skating presents dynamic moves, such as jumping, artistically. Therefore, demonstrating figure skating skills is even more difficult to achieve than basic skating, and professional skaters often fall during Winter Olympic performances. We propose a system to demonstrate figure skating motions with a physically simulated human‐like character. We simulate skating motions with non‐holonomic constraints, which make the skate blade glide on the ice surface. It is difficult to obtain reference motions from figure skaters because figure skating motions are very fast and dynamic. Instead of using motion capture data, we use key poses extracted from videos on YouTube and complete reference motions using trajectory optimization. We demonstrate figure skating skills, such as crossover, three‐turn, and even jump. Finally, we use deep reinforcement learning to generate a robust controller for figure skating skills.
Practical Foldover‐Free Volumetric Mapping Construction
Authors: Su Jian-Ping , Fu Xiao-Ming , Liu Ligang 
Published: November 2019

AbstractIn this paper, we present a practically robust method for computing foldover‐free volumetric mappings with hard linear constraints. Central to this approach is a projection algorithm that monotonically and efficiently decreases the distance from the mapping to the bounded conformal distortion mapping space. After projection, the conformal distortion of the updated mapping tends to be below the given bound, thereby significantly reducing foldovers. Since it is non‐trivial to define an optimal bound, we introduce a practical conformal distortion bound generation scheme to facilitate subsequent projections. By iteratively generating conformal distortion bounds and trying to project mappings into bounded conformal distortion spaces monotonically, our algorithm achieves high‐quality foldover‐free volumetric mappings with strong practical robustness and high efficiency. Compared with existing methods, our method computes mesh‐based and meshless volumetric mappings with no prescribed conformal distortion bounds. We demonstrate the efficacy and efficiency of our method through a variety of geometric processing tasks.
A Generalized Cubemap for Encoding 360° VR Videos using Polynomial Approximation
Authors: Xiao J. Y. , Tang J.T. , Zhang X. Y. 
Published: November 2019

Abstract360° VR videos provide users with an immersive visual experience. To encode 360° VR videos, spherical pixels must be mapped onto a two‐dimensional domain to take advantage of the existing video encoding and storage standards. In VR industry, standard cubemap projection is the most widely used projection method for encoding 360° VR videos. However, it exhibits pixel density variation at different regions due to projection distortion. We present a generalized algorithm to improve the efficiency of cubemap projection using polynomial approximation. In our algorithm, standard cubemap projection can be regarded as a special form with 1st‐order polynomial. Our experiments show that the generalized cubemap projection can significantly reduce the projection distortion using higher order polynomials. As a result, pixel distribution can be well balanced in the resulting 360° VR videos. We use PSNR, S‐PSNR and CPP‐PSNR to evaluate the visual quality and the experimental results demonstrate promising performance improvement against standard cubemap projection and Google's equi‐angular cubemap.
Visibility‐Aware Progressive Farthest Point Sampling on the GPU
Authors: Brandt Sascha , Jähn Claudius , Fischer Matthias , auf der Heide Friedhelm Meyer 
Published: November 2019

AbstractIn this paper, we present the first algorithm for progressive sampling of 3D surfaces with blue noise characteristics that runs entirely on the GPU. The performance of our algorithm is comparable to state‐of‐the‐art GPU Poisson‐disk sampling methods, while additionally producing ordered sequences of samples where every prefix exhibits good blue noise properties. The basic idea is, to reduce the 3D sampling domain to a set of 2.5D images which we sample in parallel utilizing the rasterization hardware of current GPUs. This allows for simple visibility‐aware sampling that only captures the surface as seen from outside the sampled object, which is especially useful for point‐based level‐of‐detail rendering methods. However, our method can be easily extended for sampling the entire surface without changing the basic algorithm. We provide a statistical analysis of our algorithm and show that it produces good blue noise characteristics for every prefix of the resulting sample sequence and analyze the performance of our method compared to related state‐of‐the‐art sampling methods.
Style Mixer: Semantic‐aware Multi‐Style Transfer Network
Authors: Huang Zixuan , Zhang Jinghuai , Liao Jing 
Published: November 2019

AbstractRecent neural style transfer frameworks have obtained astonishing visual quality and flexibility in Single‐style Transfer (SST), but little attention has been paid to Multi‐style Transfer (MST) which refers to simultaneously transferring multiple styles to the same image. Compared to SST, MST has the potential to create more diverse and visually pleasing stylization results. In this paper, we propose the first MST framework to automatically incorporate multiple styles into one result based on regional semantics. We first improve the existing SST backbone network by introducing a novel multi‐level feature fusion module and a patch attention module to achieve better semantic correspondences and preserve richer style details. For MST, we designed a conceptually simple yet effective region‐based style fusion module to insert into the backbone. It assigns corresponding styles to content regions based on semantic matching, and then seamlessly combines multiple styles together. Comprehensive evaluations demonstrate that our framework outperforms existing works of SST and MST.
Distribution Update of Deformable Patches for Texture Synthesis on the Free Surface of Fluids
Authors: Gagnon Jonathan , Guzmán Julián E. , Vervondel Valentin , Dagenais François , Mould David , Paquette Eric 
Published: November 2019

AbstractWe propose an approach for temporally coherent patch‐based texture synthesis on the free surface of fluids. Our approach is applied as a post‐process, using the surface and velocity field from any fluid simulator. We apply the texture from the exemplar through multiple local mesh patches fitted to the surface and mapped to the exemplar. Our patches are constructed from the fluid free surface by taking a subsection of the free surface mesh. As such, they are initially very well adapted to the fluid's surface, and can later deform according to the free surface velocity field, allowing a greater ability to represent surface motion than rigid or 2D grid‐based patches. From one frame to the next, the patch centers and surrounding patch vertices are advected according to the velocity field. We seek to maintain a Poisson disk distribution of patches, and following advection, the Poisson disk criterion determines where to add new patches and which patches should e flagged for removal. The removal considers the local number of patches: in regions containing too many patches, we accelerate the temporal removal. This reduces the number of patches while still meeting the Poisson disk criterion. Reducing areas with too many patches speeds up the computation and avoids patch‐blending artifacts. The final step of our approach creates the overall texture in an atlas where each texel is computed from the patches using a contrast‐preserving blending function. Our tests show that the approach works well on free surfaces undergoing significant deformation and topological changes. Furthermore, we show that our approach provides good results for many fluid simulation scenarios, and with many texture exemplars. We also confirm that the optical flow from the resulting texture matches the fluid velocity field. Overall, our approach compares favorably against recent work in this area.
FontRNN: Generating Large‐scale Chinese Fonts via Recurrent Neural Network
Authors: Tang Shusen , Xia Zeqing , Lian Zhouhui , Tang Yingmin , Xiao Jianguo 
Published: November 2019

AbstractDespite the recent impressive development of deep neural networks, using deep learning based methods to generate large‐scale Chinese fonts is still a rather challenging task due to the huge number of intricate Chinese glyphs, e.g., the official standard Chinese charset GB18030‐2000 consists of 27,533 Chinese characters. Until now, most existing models for this task adopt Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to generate bitmap images of Chinese characters due to CNN based models' remarkable success in various applications. However, CNN based models focus more on image‐level features while usually ignore stroke order information when writing characters. Instead, we treat Chinese characters as sequences of points (i.e., writing trajectories) and propose to handle this task via an effective Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) model with monotonic attention mechanism, which can learn from as few as hundreds of training samples and then synthesize glyphs for remaining thousands of characters in the same style. Experimental results show that our proposed FontRNN can be used for synthesizing large‐scale Chinese fonts as well as generating realistic Chinese handwritings efficiently.
A PatchMatch‐based Approach for Matte Propagation in Videos
Authors: Backes Marcos H. , Oliveira Manuel M. 
Published: November 2019

AbstractDespite considerable advances in natural image matting over the last decades, video matting still remains a difficult problem. The main challenges faced by existing methods are the large amount of user input required, and temporal inconsistencies in mattes between pairs of adjacent frames. We present a temporally‐coherent matte‐propagation method for videos based on PatchMatch and edge‐aware filtering. Given an input video and trimaps for a few frames, including the first and last, our approach generates alpha mattes for all frames of the video sequence. We also present a user scribble‐based interface for video matting that takes advantage of the efficiency of our method to interactively refine the matte results. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by using it to generate temporally‐coherent mattes for several natural video sequences. We perform quantitative comparisons against the state‐of‐the‐art sparse‐input video matting techniques and show that our method produces significantly better results according to three different metrics. We also perform qualitative comparisons against the state‐of‐the‐art dense‐input video matting techniques and show that our approach produces similar quality results while requiring only about 7% of the amount of user input required by such techniques. These results show that our method is both effective and user‐friendly, outperforming state‐of‐the‐art solutions.