A superior drug controlled release system capable of achieving efficient osteogenesis is in imperative demand because of limited
bone substitute tissue for the treatment of bone defect. In the present study, we investigated the potential of using poly(ε-caprolactone)–hydroxyapatite
(PCL–HA) composite microspheres as an injectable bone repair vehicle by controlled release of alendronate (AL), a medicine
that belongs to the bisphosphonates family. The PCL/HA–AL microspheres were prepared with solid/oil/water emulsion technique,
which included two processes: (1) AL was loaded on the hydroxyapatite nanoparticles; (2) the HA–AL complex was built in the
PCL matrix. The spherical PCL/HA–AL microspheres were characterized with its significantly improved encapsulation efficiency
of hydrophilic AL and better sustained release. Human bone mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were cultured on the surface of
these microspheres and exhibited high proliferative profile. Specifically, in osteogenic medium, hMSCs on the surface of PCL/HA–AL
microspheres displayed superior osteogenic differentiation which was verified by alkaline phosphatase activity assay. In conclusion,
by presenting strong osteogenic commitment of hMSCs in vitro, the PCL/HA–AL microspheres have the potential to be used as
an injectable vehicle for local therapy of bone defect. 相似文献
Accurate segmentation of lungs in pathological thoracic computed tomography (CT) scans plays an important role in pulmonary disease diagnosis. However, it is still a challenging task due to the variability of pathological lung appearances and shapes. In this paper, we proposed a novel segmentation algorithm based on random forest (RF), deep convolutional network, and multi-scale superpixels for segmenting pathological lungs from thoracic CT images accurately. A pathological thoracic CT image is first segmented based on multi-scale superpixels, and deep features, texture, and intensity features extracted from superpixels are taken as inputs of a group of RF classifiers. With the fusion of classification results of RFs by a fractional-order gray correlation approach, we capture an initial segmentation of pathological lungs. We finally utilize a divide-and-conquer strategy to deal with segmentation refinement combining contour correction of left lungs and region repairing of right lungs. Our algorithm is tested on a group of thoracic CT images affected with interstitial lung diseases. Experiments show that our algorithm can achieve a high segmentation accuracy with an average DSC of 96.45% and PPV of 95.07%. Compared with several existing lung segmentation methods, our algorithm exhibits a robust performance on pathological lung segmentation. Our algorithm can be employed reliably for lung field segmentation of pathologic thoracic CT images with a high accuracy, which is helpful to assist radiologists to detect the presence of pulmonary diseases and quantify its shape and size in regular clinical practices.
Temperature-sensitive genic male sterile (TGMS) line Beijing Sterility 366 (BS366) has been utilized in hybrid breeding for a long time, but the molecular mechanism underlying male sterility remains unclear. Expression arrays, small RNA, and degradome sequencing were used in this study to explore the potential role of miRNA in the cold-induced male sterility of BS366. Microspore observation showed defective cell plates in dyads and tetrads and shrunken microspores at the vacuolated stage. Differential regulation of Golgi vesicle transport, phragmoplast formation, sporopollenin biosynthesis, pollen exine formation, and lipid metabolism were observed between cold and control conditions. Pollen development was significantly represented in the 352 antagonistic miRNA-target pairs in the integrated analysis of miRNA and mRNA profiles. The specific cleavage of ARF17 and TIR1 by miR160 and miR393 were found in the cold-treated BS366 degradome, respectively. Thus, the cold-mediated miRNAs impaired cell plate formation through repression of Golgi vesicle transport and phragmoplast formation. The repressed expression of ARF17 and TIR1 impaired pollen exine formation. The results of this study will contribute to our understanding of the roles of miRNAs in male sterility in wheat. 相似文献
To map the Earth's surface at remarkable resolution, Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (ALSM) instrument technology and subsequent algorithms have been used over the last several years. Since forested watersheds have commonly been problematic to study with remote sensing techniques, the ability of ALSM technology to densely sample ground elevations beneath forest canopies is especially considerable. Stream network detection from digital elevation models (DEMs) is a key role in modelling spatially distributed hydrological processes. To detect stream channels, we have developed two approaches. The first approach is based on an encoding of mathematical morphological operators. In the second approach, a composition of geodesic top-hat and bot-hat operations of different sizes is used in order to build a morphological profile (PM) that records the image structural information. The two proposed methods perform well in terms of detection results and classification accuracies. The second approach is more general than the first, but it also requires training and more computation. 相似文献
Typically developing children understand and predict others' behavior by extracting and processing relevant information such as the logic of their actions within the situational constraints and the intentions conveyed by their gaze direction and emotional expressions. Children with autism have difficulties understanding and predicting others' actions. With the use of eye tracking and behavioral measures, we investigated action understanding mechanisms used by 18 children with autism and a well-matched group of 18 typically developing children. Results showed that children with autism (a) consider situational constraints in order to understand the logic of an agent's action and (b) show typical usage of the agent's emotional expressions to infer his or her intentions. We found (c) subtle atypicalities in the way children with autism respond to an agent's direct gaze and (d) marked impairments in their ability to attend to and interpret referential cues such as a head turn for understanding an agent's intentions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved) 相似文献