Recent progress in object recognition from range data

Within the last half decade active devices have been able to provide three-dimensional data directly to vision systems. This paper examines some of the progress that has been made with this data in the field of 3D computer vision. Aspects of this field from acquisition to recognition are discussed and some major research results are reviewed.     

Concentration of neural thread protein in cerebrospinal fluid from progressive supranuclear palsy and Parkinson's disease

We measured the concentration of neural thread protein (NTP) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) by an automatized microparticle enzyme immunoassay from 11 progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) patients and 11 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and 7 patients with cervical spondylosis as controls. The mean levels did not differ significantly among the groups. In the PSP group, however, the levels correlated significantly with the severity of motor symptoms, signs and functional disability but not with dementia, while the opposite was true in the PD group. The elevated levels in PSP cases may reflect an increase with progression of the disease in such pathological structures as neurofibrillary tangles or neuropil threads, while in PD such levels may indicate associated Alzheimer-type pathology.     

Quantitative microdialysis of neuropeptide Y

The feasibility of using the difference method of quantitative microdialysis to measure neuropeptide Y (NPY) was evaluated in vitro and in vivo. The accuracy of this method was tested in vitro under steady-state conditions for 3 test solutions containing known concentrations of NPY. The estimated concentrations of NPY were 1.2 +/- 0.6, 3.7 +/- 0.9, and 15.1 +/- 0.7 pg/microliter (mean +/- SEM) in agreement with the actual concentrations of NPY in the test solutions which were 1.1 +/- 0.8, 4.6 +/- 0.6, and 14.6 +/- 0.5 pg/microliter (mean +/- SEM of solution samples), respectively. The responsiveness of the estimated NPYext measure to changes in the external concentration of NPY was also evaluated in vitro. An accurate estimate of NPYext was obtained within the first sampling period (within 15 min) after a 2-3-fold increase in the test solution concentration of NPY and within 2-3 sampling periods (15-45 min) in response to a 2-3-fold decrease in the test solution concentration of NPY. In vivo, the estimated basal concentration of NPY in dialysis samples from probes in the medial basal hypothalamus of anesthetized female rats (n = 4) was 4.0 +/- 1.6 pg/microliters and increased to 9.5 +/- 0.3 pg/microliter during K+ stimulation. Relative recovery was 22% in vivo under steady-state conditions and ranged from 14% to 30% during dynamic conditions. These results demonstrate that the difference method of quantitative microdialysis accurately estimates picomolar concentrations of NPY in vitro, and is sufficiently sensitive to detect basal and increasing concentrations of NPY in vivo.