Macaca mulatta) as they watched social and nonsocial videos. We found that social videos, as compared to nonsocial videos, captured more visual attention, especially if the social signals depicted in the videos were directed towards the subject. Subject-directed social cues and nonsocial nature documentary footage, compared to videos showing conspecifics engaging in naturalistic social interactions, generated larger pupil diameters . These findings indicate that rhesus monkeys will actively engage in watching videos of various kinds. Moreover, infrared eye tracking technology provides a mechanism for sensitively gauging the social interest of presented stimuli. Adult male rhesus monkeys' visual attention and physiological arousal do not always trend in the same direction, and are likely influenced by the content and novelty of a particular visual stimulus. This experiment creates a strong foundation for future experiments that will examine the neural network responsible for social information processing in nonhuman primates. Such studies may provide valuable information relevant to interpreting the neural deficits underlying human psychiatric illnesses such as autism, schizophrenia and social anxiety disorder.The sophisticated analysis of gestures and vocalizations, including assessment of their emotional valence, helps group-living primates efficiently navigate their social environment. Deficits in social information processing and emotion regulation are important components of many human psychiatric illnesses, such as autism, schizophrenia and social anxiety disorder. Analyzing the neurobiology of social information processing and emotion regulation requires a multidisciplinary approach that benefits from comparative studies of humans and animal models. However, many questions remain regarding the relationship between visual attention and arousal while processing social stimuli. Using noninvasive infrared eye-tracking methods, we measured the visual social attention and physiological arousal (pupil diameter) of adult male rhesus monkeys ( Social cognition describes a collection of perceptual, cognitive and regulatory processes that coordinate one's interactions with others Despite the advances brought about through research on rhesus monkeys, this work comes with several caveats. First, most neurotoxic lesion and transient inactivation studies have measured social behavior deficits in operated and control animals while freely interacting in groups In the current experiment, we measured visual social attention and sympathetic nervous system arousal in adult, male, rhesus monkeys as they watched a large library of social and nonsocial video clips. We measured visual attention using an infrared eye-tracking system and a noninvasive method of head restraint All experimental procedures were noninvasive and developed in collaboration with the veterinary, animal husbandry and environmental enrichment staff at the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC). All data presented here were collected at the CNPRC under a protocol (13483) approved by the University of California, Davis, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. All attempts were made  to promote the psychological well-being of the animals in accordance with recommendations made by the Weatherall report, “The use of non-human primates in research.”ad libitum. The current study did not begin until the animals were 5.8–8.7 years old and weighed 10–14 kg.Six adult male rhesus monkeys participated in this study. Each was born at the CNPRC and lived in 1 of 24, half-acre outdoor enclosures for at least 2 years before being relocated to indoor housing. Each of these outdoor enclosures contained approximately 70 animals of various ages and sexes. Once relocated indoors, each animal was housed in a standard adult macaque laboratory cage (66 cm width×61 cm length×81 cm height) with a minimum of 6 hours of socialization permitted with a neighboring animal each weekday. Depending on the relationship, daily socialization was either full, unrestrained interactions in either of the 2 adjoining cages or restricted to mostly visual interaction through a metal grate . The housing room was maintained on a 12-hour light/dark cycle. All animals were maintained on a diet of fresh fruit, vegetables and monkey chow , with water available Training methods and noninvasive head restraint strategies have been described in detail elsewhere Visual stimuli were presented to each monkey using a PC running the Eprime 2.0 Professional software package . All gaze data were collected using the Eye-Trac 6 .NET User Interface program (Applied Science Laboratories) on a separate PC. Infrared luminance level, pupil threshold and corneal reflection threshold were set individually for each animal at the start of each session. Sampling rate for the infrared eye-tracking camera was set to 120 Hz. A standard nine-point calibration  was conducted prior to testing with each animal to ensure accuracy of gaze data collection. Calibration stimuli were videos presented in small portions of the screen  of rhesus monkeys from the outdoor housing enclosures at the CNPRC. The goal here was to attract the animal's gaze to different portions of the screen to calibrate the data acquisition software.Once reliably calibrated, each monkey was trained to fixate color animated GIF images at random spatial positions on the computer screen for juice rewards that were manually dispensed by the experimenter. Animals completed this phase of training once they fixated the GIF images consistently for 2 consecutive days. During the second phase of fixation training, animals viewed either photographs  on a 50% gray background or color video clips  on a black background. Each photograph or movie was separated by four 50% gray screens: 1) blank, 10-second duration, 2) black square target  at center, 3) same black square target positioned randomly at 1 of 8 points around the screen periphery, and 4) blank, 10-second duration. Animals were required to fixate each black square target for at least 250 ms to obtain a small juice reward and move on to the next picture or movie trial, thus ensuring accuracy of the point-of-gaze data throughout a prolonged testing session. The animals completed the final phase of training once they finished 100 picture or 50 movie trials in less than 90 minutes on 3 consecutive days.A library of 600, 30-second color videos was created for this study. Half of these videos (300) were created from raw video footage of rhesus monkeys collected at the CNPRC. A majority of these “social” videos showed rhesus macaques from the CNPRC field cages engaging in social behaviors, such as aggression (25 videos), grooming (50 videos), play (50 videos), mounting (15 videos), foraging (50 videos) or sitting in groups without overt social behavior . These stimuli will be collectively referred to as Naturalistic Social videos. In addition, a series of videos was created that depicted camera- or subject-directed facial expressions of aggression or subordination (20 videos each), as well as videos of monkeys simply looking towards the camera but not producing any social signals . These stimuli will be collectively referred to as Subject Directed Social videos. The remaining 300 videos were gathered from commercial nature documentaries such as “Planet Earth”  and “Life in the Undergrowth” . These Nature videos depicted birds (53 videos), insects/invertebrates (43 videos), land mammals (62 videos), marine mammals/fish (57 videos) and landscapes/flowers (85 videos). None of the Nature, Naturalistic Social or Subject Directed Social videos showed humans, other nonhuman primate species, snakes or other natural predators of macaques .Raw video footage was edited using the PowerDirector Express version 5.0 software  on a PC. Each video clip only included footage depicting social behavior from a single category  or animals from only one Nature category . Given that the frequency of scene changes within a video may influence visual attention in rhesus monkeys Data described here were gathered over 12 days. On each test day, the animal was transported to the eye-tracking room, placed into the testing chair and its head was restrained with a thermoplastic helmet The first phase of a daily testing session required the animal to watch 10, 30-second “Baseline” videos that were made up of typical PC or Macintosh screen savers . These same 10 Baseline videos were shown in widescreen format (16∶9) and in random sequence each test day. Requiring the animals to watch these basic video stimuli served to verify eye-tracker calibration and the animal's willingness to participate in the testing session before the animal viewed the Naturalistic Social, Subject Directed Social and Nature videos of main interest. As shown at the top of In the second testing phase, the animal viewed a pseudorandom mixture of 25 Social and 25 Nature videos , bottom,Each animal's total fixation duration, total frequency of fixations, average fixation duration, average gaze dwell duration and average pupil diameter was measured for each video using the ASL Results software package (Applied Science Laboratories). Eye tracking parameters were computed for a single rectangular area of interest (AOI) that encompassed the entire video frame. Default parameters were used to define fixations (Applied Science Laboratories). A fixation was recorded if gaze coordinates remained within 1°×1° visual angle for at least 100 ms. The duration of a given fixation ended when gaze coordinates deviated by more than 1°×1° visual angle for more than 360 ms. Total fixation frequency represented the cumulative number of discrete fixations that fell within the video AOI during each 30-second trial. Total fixation duration was the cumulative time (maximum = 30 seconds) that the animal spent fixating the video AOI. The average fixation duration was derived by dividing the total fixation duration by the total fixation frequency. Finally, the average dwell duration measures the average amount of time that gaze remained within the video AOI without leaving.We opted to normalize data within each animal to control for individual differences across test days. For each video, the animal's total fixation duration, total fixation frequency, average fixation duration or average dwell duration was divided by the average of that same variable across all 50 Social and Nature videos viewed that day. The resulting quotients were multiplied by 100 to give a metric that can be interpreted as a percent of the animal's typical total fixation duration, total fixation frequency, average fixation duration or average dwell duration on a given test day. As an example, if an animal fixated on a given video for 23 seconds, but their average fixation duration across all Social and Nature videos on that day was 18 seconds, then their normalized total fixation duration for the video in question was (23/18)×100 = 128 or 28% longer than the daily average fixation duration.t-tests of significant main effects and interactions were Bonferroni corrected for multiple comparisons. Alpha was set at p<.05, but significance levels up to p = .07 are also presented as marginally significant due to the small sample size and conservative approach to correction for multiple comparisons.For each of these 4 dependent variables, we examined values for the entire 30-second video, as well as values for each 10-second block. Data were compared across broad categories of video stimuli , as well as within each category  using ANOVAs with Category (3–6) and Block (3) as within-subjects factors with repeated measures. A Huynh-Feldt correction was used to adjust the degrees of freedom if the group variance did not remain equal across the three 10-second blocks. Post-hoc p<.05). Such a difference necessitated a normalization procedure to remove the influence of differences in luminance across video categories, as well as individual differences. We identified 2 normalization strategies. The gray screen that proceeded and followed each video had the same average luminance as that video. The raw average pupil diameter data from each video was therefore divided by the average pupil diameter during the gray screens flanking each video and multiplied by 100 to provide pupil diameters in terms of a percent of the gray screen value. An alternative approach was to use the same within-subject strategy as described for the gaze data above. The raw average pupil diameter for each video was divided by that animal's average pupil diameter across the entire testing session on that day and multiplied by 100 to provide pupil diameters in terms of a percent of the daily average. Analysis of the pupil diameter data was conducted using both normalization strategies and nearly identical results were found for both strategies. Therefore, for the sake of consistency with the gaze data, we will display results for the pupil diameter dataset using the within-subject normalization strategy. The results generated using the gray screen normalization strategy are included as As an index of cognitive processing load F = 14.74, p = .01, p2η = .747].Examples of 1 Nature, Naturalistic Social and Subject Directed Social video are shown online with the pattern of visual attention (or point-of-gaze) from 1 animal mapped onto the video with black cross-hairs  = 10.45, p<.01, p2η = .676; post-hoc: Naturalistic Social>Subject Directed Social p = .066, Naturalistic Social>Nature p = .015]. We also found that sub-categories within the Naturalistic Social videos differed in the total frequency of fixations . In particular, the animals fixated more frequently when watching videos showing conspecifics engaged in mounting behavior relative to those showing foraging [post-hoc: Mounting>Foraging p = .021]. No other sub-categories within the Naturalistic Social videos differed significantly.Based on the frequency of fixations, the monkeys' discriminated between the Nature, Naturalistic Social and Subject Directed Social video categories. As shown in F = 4.685, p = .037, p2η = .484; post-hoc: Subject Directed Social = Naturalistic Social = Nature, all p>.11]. However, discrete fixations were significantly longer when animals watched Subject Directed Social videos . More focused analysis of the 3 sub-categories within Subject Directed Social videos did not indicate any significant differences in average fixation duration based on type of content .In contrast to the total number of fixations, Subject Directed Social videos commanded the greatest total fixation duration , but theF = 9.108, p = .006, p2η = .646; post-hoc: Subject Directed Social>Nature p = .036, Naturalistic Social>Nature p = .065]. There was no significant difference in average dwell duration between the sub-categories of Subject Directed Social videos. However, within the Naturalistic Social category, aggression and mounting videos captured the animals' attention for longer periods of time than foraging videos . Finally, the measures of total fixation frequency, total fixation duration, average fixation duration and average dwell duration were all consistent throughout the entire video , indicating that these measures of visual attention were not consistently driven by 1 particular segment of the videos.In addition to measures of gaze frequency and duration, we also measured the average time that the animals' gaze remained or “dwelled” within the video frame area of interest without leaving . This meF = 101.53, p<.001, p2η = .953; post-hoc: Subject Directed Social and Nature>Naturalistic Social, both p<.001]. Pupil diameter was also largest during the first 10 seconds of a given video (Block 1 of 3), regardless of content , but remained static between Blocks 2 and 3. By contrast, when animals watched Nature videos, their pupil diameters decreased slightly across the 30-second video, but did not change significantly. We also examined the sub-categories within the Subject Directed Social and Nature videos to determine if 1 or more specific type of content could be driving the larger pupil diameters observed for the more general category. There were no significant differences in pupil diameter between the 3 sub-categories of Subject Directed Social videos (p<.05). Pupil diameter was intermediate and did not differ between videos showing birds, insects/invertebrates and landscapes/flowers, but each of these 3 sub-categories still produced pupil diameters greater than land mammals .Average pupil diameter during each video was also collected to provide a measure of sympathetic nervous system activity l videos . HoweverThe present study assessed how visual attention and autonomic nervous system arousal are differentially modulated by social and nonsocial information. This was assessed using noninvasive video eye-tracking and pupillometry to simultaneously measure differences in visual attention and sympathetic nervous system arousal when adult male rhesus monkeys watched high-quality videos. Overall, adult male rhesus monkeys fixated more frequently and for longer durations when watching videos with social content relative to nonsocial, nature documentary footage. Relative to nature documentary footage, videos showing macaque social signals directed towards the viewer commanded the longest average fixation duration, total fixation duration and average duration of continuous fixation or “dwell” within the video frame. Videos showing conspecifics engaged in naturalistic social interactions resulted in the highest total number of fixations, but videos in this category typically fell between those showing subject-directed social signals or nature documentary footage in fixation duration measures of attention .These results confirmed our expectations that were based on previous eye-tracking studies with humans, apes and monkeys indicating a strong preference for attending to social stimuli, especially faces As is common for most infrared eye-tracking systems currently available, we were also able to measure 1 index of autonomic nervous system arousal in our animals – pupil diameter. The diameter of the human and nonhuman primate pupil is controlled by muscles in the iris that contract and relax In contrast to the clear visual preference for videos with conspecific social content, we showed here that both subject-directed social signals and nature documentary footage, relative to those with naturalistic social interaction content, resulted in larger pupil diameters indicating elevated sympathetic nervous system arousal. The elevated autonomic response in the subject-directed videos was expected. Although the subject-directed social videos varied in the type of social signals displayed , all consisted of close-up footage of unfamiliar monkeys displaying direct eye contact toward the camera/viewer. In rhesus monkey society, direct eye-contact is a highly threatening gesture and readily elicits behavioral expressions of fear, passive avoidance and/or generalized tension The increased pupillary response to the Nature category of videos was not expected. One possible explanation for the elevated pupil diameters could be the novelty of the content in those videos. The monkeys used in this study were raised in semi-naturalistic outdoor enclosures. As a result, they had limited exposure to non-primate animals  during development. The rural landscape in which the housing enclosures are embedded is very consistent. Thus, the marine mammals or fish, as well as the oceanic, forest, desert and polar landscapes shown in the nature documentary footage were highly novel to our subjects. There was evidence of habituation in the temporal characteristics of pupil diameters (significantly lower pupil diameters after the first 10 seconds) for the Subject Directed and Naturalistic social videos, but not for the Nature videos  between the animals and the video camera. Such an extensive stimulus set does not currently exist in the fields of social neuroscience or primatology, and therefore may be of value to other investigators. For example, the normative point-of-gaze and pupil diameter data already generated in the current study could be used to select specific stimuli for future studies. These stimuli could also be used during functional neuroimaging or electrophysiological recording studies, alone or in conjunction with static images, to ask questions about how the primate brain represents social context or sequential information during social interactions. These video stimuli will be made available to other investigators and should be requested from the corresponding author.In summary, the study of social neuroscience, like other areas of neuroscience, can benefit greatly from comparative studies in humans and animal models. This is especially true if studies utilize stimuli that closely reflect naturalistic conditions and use similar methods (such as eye-tracking and pupillometry) across species. Understanding how different kinds of experimental manipulations  perturb specific aspects of social cognition  will greatly facilitate the development of new insights into the underlying neurobiology of human psychiatric illnesses.Table S1Pupil diameter analysis using the gray screen normalization method and comparing the three main video categories.(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.Table S2Pupil diameter analysis using the gray screen normalization method and comparing the Subject Directed Social video sub-categories.(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.Table S3Pupil diameter analysis using the gray screen normalization method and comparing the Nature video sub-categories.(DOCX)Click here for additional data file.Video S1A sample video from the Nature video category.(MOV)Click here for additional data file.Video S2A sample video from the Naturalistic Social video category.(MOV)Click here for additional data file.Video S3A sample video from the Subject Directed Social video category.(MOV)Click here for additional data file.Video S4A sample video from the Nature video category with black cross-hairs superimposed to indicate one animal's point-of-gaze.(MOV)Click here for additional data file.Video S5A sample video from the Naturalistic Social video category with black cross-hairs superimposed to indicate one animal's point-of-gaze.(MOV)Click here for additional data file.Video S6A sample video from the Subject Directed Social video category with black cross-hairs superimposed to indicate one animal's point-of-gaze.(MOV)Click here for additional data file.


Fingerprint-based structure representation has a broad range of applications including, but not limited to, diversity analysis, compound classification, chemical space visualization , activit


Methods. Publications reporting HCA in the United States were identified through a PubMed search and a review of the literature. We excluded publications prior to 1970, single case reports, and publications for which there was no data available regarding patient characteristics including OCP use and the number of adenomas. Conclusion. Whereas earlier reports of HCA in the United States described cases exclusively in women exposed to OCPs, there is a trend towards an increase in HCAs reported in men, HCAs in the absence of OCP use, and increased reporting of multiple HCAs. This may be a result of newer OCP formulations and increasing prevalence of obesity.Hepatocellular adenoma (HCA) is a benign neoplasm arising from hepatocytes. There is evidence that the inflammatory subtype may be associated with obesity and alcohol use and that men with metabolic syndrome may be at risk for malignant transformation of HCA. We sought to explore the combined experience of US centers as reported in the literature to document the epidemiologic shift in risk factors for HCA formation in the United States, namely, a shift from oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) to an emerging role of obesity as a contributing factor.  I-HCAs and H-HCAs account for the majority (80%), while b-HCAs comprise about 10%–15% [β-catenin mutation; however, H-HCAs and b-HCAs are mutually exclusive [Hepatocellular adenomas (HCAs) are benign hepatic neoplasms that became widely recognized in the 1960s and 1970s following the introduction of oral contraceptive pills (OCP's). Recent advances have identified distinct subtypes based on genotypic classification [(H-HCA),  β-cateni(b-HCA),  inflammaHCAs appear as unencapsulated tumors that may be solitary or multiple. Adenomatosis, a term used when greater than 10 adenomas are encountered, can be associated with maturity onset diabetes of the young type 3 (MODY3). Histologically, HCAs are characterized by plates of hepatocytes that lack portal tract elements and are separated by sinusoids. Immunohistochemical staining techniques proposed by the Bordeaux group –6 aid inH-HCAs result from inactivating mutations in the hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 A (HNF1A) gene. Histologic features include marked hepatocellular steatosis, lack of cytologic atypia, and absence of inflammatory infiltrates. This subtype occurs almost exclusively in women and can also be associated with maturity onset diabetes of the young type 3 (MODY3), a condition caused by germline mutations in HNF1A. IHC staining distinguishes this subtype through absent expression of liver fatty acid binding protein (LFABP) in tumoral hepatocytes and normal expression in nontumoral liver.β-catenin mutations [b-HCAs are characterized histologically by nuclear atypia and pseudoacinar formation. This subtype has been associated with men, androgen treatment, and glycogen storage disease. IHC demonstrates aberrant nuclear beta-catenin staining and strong positive staining for glutamine synthetase. This subtype has been associated with an increased risk of malignant transformation . Twenty utations , 7.Inflammatory HCAs comprise 40%–50% of adenomas and are the type most commonly associated with OCP use, although obesity and alcohol consumption have also been identified as risk factors . HistoloWith the advent of modern imaging, most adenomas that come to attention are discovered incidentally. Patients may also present with abdominal pain or a palpable mass; hemorrhage is a presenting feature in 20%–40%, and malignant transformation is estimated to occur in 4%–10% . For patOCPs were first introduced in 1960 and initially contained concentrations of estrogen and progestin that were 2–5 times and 5–10 times higher than current formulations . Before New risk factors for HCA have emerged in recent years, in particular obesity , 26 and I-HCA is associated with obesity and with steatosis in the nontumoral liver. This was first suggested by Paradis et al. who found that most cases of I-HCA  occurred in overweight or obese patients and that steatosis outside of tumors was found in 69% of cases, with moderate/severe steatosis in 30% . The assVetalainen reported a review of 94 cases of adenomatosis in the literature and found that 18% had steatosis . AnotherWe reviewed the combined experience of US centers as reported in the literature to identify whether there is an epidemiologic shift in risk factors for HCA from OCP use to obesity and metabolic syndrome and whether there is a resultant increasing incidence of HCAs in men. Several case series, most of which are single-center experiences, report clinical characteristics of HCA in the United States. Most of the series are single-center experiences from surgical or pathologic databases of resection specimens and are therefore subject to selection bias. Publications reporting HCA in the United States from 1970 onwards were identified through a PubMed search and review of the literature. Published series for which information regarding clinical presentation was available were selected and divided into “early experience” (prior to 1985) and “later experience” (beyond 1985), as summarized in Tables P = 0.001). Ruptured HCAs were also larger (10.5 ± 4.5 cm versus 7.2 ± 4.8 cm). Logistic regression analysis identified tumor size >7 cm (P = 0.001) and hormone use (P = 0.007) as independent risk factors for rupture. No ruptured HCA was <5 cm. Five patients (4%) had HCC; all occurred in HCAs that were >8 cm, and three of five occurred in patients who were taking OCPs. Mean BMI was 27 (±5), and there was no correlation between BMI and risk for rupture. History of hormone use was reported in 55% of patients, which the authors noted was lower than rates of 72%–77% reported in earlier series. Details about patients who developed HCA in the absence of OCP use were not available.The two largest surgical series of HCA experiences from the United States are a multicenter series  and the Cho et al. published a single center surgical series from Pittsburgh describing their experience with 41 patients who underwent resection for HCA over a 19-year period . The priP = 0.007), bilobar distribution , and tumor size progression . Unlike other groups, the authors did not note an association between obesity and I-HCA. Recently, Bunchorntavakul et al. described a single-center experience of 60 consecutive patients with HCA over a 5-year period . The priP = 0.05). In summary, this study demonstrates an association between obesity and multiple adenomas as well as progression of adenomas. The 26 patients who were observed over a median 2.4 years (1–7.3 years) provide a view, albeit limited, of the natural history of HCA. Resection was advised for HCAs >5 cm, bleeding, or inability to exclude malignancy; asymptomatic HCAs <5 cm were imaged every 6–12 months. Patients taking OCPs were advised to stop. HCAs remained stable in 77% and regressed in 4%; progression was observed in 19%, with progression more likely in obese patients  shows a preponderance of I-HCA (44%) followed by H-HCA (33%) and unclassified HCA (16%) and only one case (2%) of b-HCA (unpublished data). This is a lower proportion of b-HCA cases than what has been described in Europe (10%–15%). One case that had features of both I-HCA and b-HCA had a focus of hepatocellular carcinoma.There appears to be a rising incidence of HCA diagnosis as reflected in the trend towards publication of larger case series over recent years, though this is due in large part to increasing discovery of incidental HCAs with widespread use of imaging. Alternatively, it could be that with time, centers have accrued a larger population to report.The impact of modern OCPs on the development of HCA is probably marginal; on the other hand, in concordance with reports from European groups, there is increasing evidence to suggest obesity and metabolic syndrome as emerging risk factors for HCA. Multiple HCAs/adenomatosis in association with these risk factors appear to be increasing as suggested by case reports in the literature. Furthermore, European groups , 26 haveThe prevalence of obesity in the USA has risen dramatically from around 14% in the 1970s to over 35% now , 35. NonAdditional single-center or multicenter longitudinal studies that include both surgical and nonsurgical cases are warranted to examine the evolution of risk factors for HCA in the United States. Future studies should include BMI and metabolic syndrome in descriptions of cases, focusing on both men and women, and should include data on IHC staining to facilitate molecular classification.


The proposed method measures temperature by detecting the temperature dependent fluorescence lifetimes of Cd/Se Quantum Dots (QDs). For a high-sensitivity temperature measurement, the auto-fluorescence generated from a fiber probe should be reduced. In order to decrease the noise, we have fabricated a novel near-field optical-fiber probe by fusion-splicing a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) and a conventional single-mode fiber (SMF). The validity of the novel fiber probe was assessed experimentally by evaluating the auto-fluorescence spectra of the PCF. Due to the decrease of auto-fluorescence, a six- to ten-fold increase of S/N in the near-field fluorescence lifetime detection was achieved with the newly fabricated fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe. Additionally, the near-field fluorescence lifetime of the quantum dots was successfully measured by the fabricated fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe at room temperature, and was estimated to be 10.0 ns.We have developed a novel nanoscale temperature-measurement method using fluorescence in the near-field called Fluorescence Near-field Optics Thermal Nanoscopy (Fluor-NOTN). Fluor-NOTN enables the temperature distributions of nanoscale materials to be measured  Various types of micro- and nanoscale thermometry techniques have been developed and improved. Among them, the contact-mode Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM) method using a thermocouple probe tip can achieve nanoscale spatial resolution; however, the heat transfer mechanism between the probe and the sample is still unverified ,2. AnothAn alternative optical nanoscale microscope technique, Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy (NSOM), has been developed as a powerful tool for measuring optical phenomena with nanoscale spatial resolution beyond the diffraction limit of light. For example, Scattering-mode Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy (S-NSOM) has been used to successfully measure the fluorescence lifetime of single nano-structured materials such as hetero-structured nano-rods with nanoscale spatial resolution . HoweverIn our previous publication, the fluorescence lifetimes of dried QD layers deposited on a Si substrate were successfully measured with probe apertures up to 100 nm, and relative temperature measurement by a nano-wire heater was accomplished . HoweverIn this paper, we propose a novel low-auto-fluorescence fiber probe that is fabricated by fusion-splicing a Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) and a conventional Single Mode Fiber (SMF). Highly sensitive fluorescence lifetime measurement of QDs was achieved by using the newly fabricated probe. Here, the fabrication process of fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe is first demonstrated; then the resulting advance in near-field fluorescence detection of QDs using the fabricated probe is reported.2.2.1.0E at the probe tip, and then the electrical dipole moment that interacts between the probe tip and the sample induces polarizability variation. The polarizability variation ΔΨ can be expressed by the following equation [pψ and sψ are the polarizability variation of the probe tip and the sample, respectively, r is the distance between the two, and ε0 is the vacuum electric permittivity. Thus, the intensity of the scattered light sI from the sample is expressed by the following equation [In order to achieve nanoscale spatial resolution, the near-field light generated in the proximity of a small aperture was utilized. A schematic diagram of the Fluor-NOTN method is shown in equation :(1)Δψ=ψequation :(2)Is∝|ψ2 is regarded as negligible. The first term in The term that includes Δ2.2.RW is the rate constant for radiative deactivation and NRW is that for non-radiative deactivation. NRW can be expressed by the following equation [s is the frequency factor, ΔU is the thermal energy of activation, T is the temperature, and Bk is the Boltzmann constant. In the above equations, the rate of non-radiative process increases as the temperature increases; therefore, the fluorescence lifetime is expressed as a function of temperature, such that at higher temperatures the fluorophore has a shorter fluorescence lifetime. The fluorescence lifetime and its temperature dependence vary according to the type of fluorophore. In the case of QDs, it is known that the fluorescence lifetime is dependent on their diameter [Fluor-NOTN utilizes a fluorophore such as QDs as temperature probes. In the fluorescence emission, the electrons of fluorophores are first excited to higher vibrational levels, and then transit to the ground state through a radiative or non-radiative process. The fluorescence lifetime, which is the average time that electrons stay in the excited state, is expressed by the following equation :(3)τ=1Wequation :(4)WNR=diameter .τ is expressed by the following equation:f is the modulation frequency and ϕ is the phase lag. The frequency-phase response derived by In our research, the temperature dependence of the fluorescence lifetime is measured by the frequency domain method. In this method, a sinusoidally modulated laser is utilized as the excitation light. In this case, the excited fluorophores are forced to emit fluorescence at the same frequency. Due to the fluorescence lifetime, the fluorescence emission is delayed relative to the excitation, and the delay can be measured as the phase lag of excitation light and fluorescence. The fluorescence lifetime 2.3.Since a near-field light is a nonpropagation light that is excited in the proximity region of the probe tip, the distance between the probe tip and the fluorophore should be controlled at the nanoscale (less than the size of the aperture). For the purpose of distance control, a near-field optical fiber was attached to the quartz crystal tuning fork and vibrated at its resonant frequency by a function generator. When the fiber approached the sample surface, the resonant frequency of the tuning fork changed due to the shear force . Therefore, precise distance control was enabled by the detected amplitude or phase has some deviation then based on the feedback mechanism to maintaining the working point in the appropriate position on the resonance curve of the tuning fork.2.4.For the purpose of high-sensitivity temperature measurement, the weak fluorescence generated from the surface-modified QDs should be detected with a high S/N ratio. In our previous study, a custom-made Ge-doped silica core SMF was utilized to create a double-tapered near-field optical fiber probe that was optimized to I-C mode near-field operation using selective chemical etching of SMF ; howeverIn order to use optical fibers as the near-field probe, selective chemical etching utilizing the different rates of solution between pure silica and doped silica is widely applied because of its precision and simplicity. However, this method cannot be applied to PCFs because of their silica-air cladding. In this paper, therefore, we propose a fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe fabricated by splicing a PCF and a conventional SMF, aiming at sensitive fluorescence detection from QDs. 3.3.1.As the materials for the fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe, we utilized NL-PM-750 (NKT Photonics Co.) as the PCF, and the Ge-doped SMF for the near-field fiber probe. An SEM image of the cross-section of NL-PM-750, which has a structure of a pure silica core and pure silica-air cladding, is shown in In order to evaluate the validity of the fusion-spliced fiber for near-field fluorescence detection, auto-fluorescence spectra of optical fibers were measured by spectroscope. All fibers were the same length (1.0 m), and the auto-fluorescence intensities were normalized by the intensities of the excitation laser coupled to the fibers. The auto-fluorescence intensity of the PCF at the measurement wavebands was much smaller than that of both the Ge-doped-core SMF and the pure-silica-core SMF as shown in 3.2.As a preliminary step for the temperature measurement using the fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe, the dried Qdot655 layers deposited on the Si substrate were utilized as the sample. The detected fluorescence intensity drastically increased in the proximity of the sample surface. A five-fold intensity change was observed with the vertical displacement of 350 nm, indicating the successful detection of near-field fluorescence of QDs, which can only be detected in the proximity of the sample as described in We then measured the near-field fluorescence lifetime of Qdot655. The near-field fluorescence lifetime of QDs was successfully measured using a fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe fabricated by splicing a PCF and SMF, and the validity of local temperature measurement using QDs was evaluated. The excitation light will be decreased in our future study to avoid photooxidation and photobleaching of QDs.4.We have proposed a novel nano-scale thermometry method based on the near-field fluorescence-lifetime measurement of Quantum Dots (QDs). In order to increase the sensitivity of the lifetime measurement, a Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) was utilized as the material for a low-auto-fluorescence fiber probe. The PCF and a conventional SMF having similar core diameters and NAs were fusion-spliced, and an average splice loss of 1.43 dB and minimum splice loss of 1.08 dB were achieved by minimizing the collapse of microscale air holes. By measuring the auto-fluorescence spectra of the SMFs, the PCF and the fabricated probe, it was validated that the auto-fluorescence intensity of the fabricated probe had been reduced to 15.2% at the measurement waveband of Qdot655, and 9.1% at the measurement waveband of Qdot705, respectively. We also measured the near-field fluorescence lifetime of dried Qdot655 layers using the fabricated probe with an aperture diameter of 225 nm. The near-field fluorescence lifetime of Qdot655 was successfully measured and was estimated to be 10.0 ns at room temperature. These measurement results verified the capability of the proposed fusion-spliced near-field optical fiber probe for highly sensitive near-field fluorescence sensing of QDs.


We propose a video denoising method based on a spatiotemporal Kalman-bilateral mixture model to reduce the noise in video sequences that are captured with low light. To take full advantage of the strong spatiotemporal correlations of neighboring frames, motion estimation is first performed on video frames consisting of previously denoised frames and the current noisy frame by using block-matching method. Then, current noisy frame is processed in temporal domain and spatial domain by using Kalman filter and bilateral filter, respectively. Finally, by weighting the denoised frames from Kalman filtering and bilateral filtering, we can obtain a satisfactory result. Experimental results show that the performance of our proposed method is competitive when compared with state-of-the-art video denoising algorithms based on both peak signal-to-noise-ratio and structural similarity evaluations. Recently, as the rapid development of digital imaging technology, digital imaging devices have been widely applied in many fields, including computational photography, security monitoring, robot navigation, and military reconnaissance. However, video signals are often contaminated by all kinds of noise during acquisition and transmission, such as optical noise, component noise, sensor noise, and circuit noise. The noise in video signals not only damages the original information and results in unpleasant visual effect, but also affects the effectiveness of further coding or processing such as feature extraction, object detection, motion tracking, and pattern recognition. So, noise reduction in contaminated video sequences should be implemented.Many video denoising methods have been proposed in the past decade, most of which perform in the spatial domain, temporal domain, or their combination –6. MethoHowever, although video denoising technology has made great progress, most of these methods are unable to obtain ideal effect for large noisy video sequences in low light, which is urgently needed in many fields, especially in the security monitoring field. In this field, the monitoring devices are fixed in some places in general, so the captured video sequences have fixed background. In practical applications, it often requires to see the characteristic both of still and moving objects in the video sequences clearly. This requirement can be met easily in the day time. However, in the night time, because of the low light condition, captured video sequences are contaminated by noise badly. To some extent, existing video denoising methods can reduce the noise of contaminated video sequences, but this is far from enough to meet the requirement.In this paper, a novel video denoising method based on a spatiotemporal Kalman-bilateral mixture model is proposed. Firstly, we perform an appropriate average filtering on current noisy frame to reduce the influence of noise, which we call prefiltering. This step is useless to the final denoising result, but preparative to the motion estimation. Then, take advantage of the strong spatiotemporal correlations of neighboring frames, block-matching based motion estimation is performed by comparing current pre-filtered frame with previously denoised frames. Based on motion estimation results, current noisy frame is processed in the temporal domain by using Kalman filter  on the oThe remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Buades et al.  firstly In addition, there are still many video denoising methods performing in transform domain , 14–16. However, most existing video denoising methods cannot achieve satisfactory results when the video sequences are contaminated badly in low light. In this paper, we propose a spatiotemporal Kalman-bilateral mixture model, which can reduce the noise in large noisy video sequences that are captured with low light.Motion estimation itself is a complex problem. Generally, motion estimation is performed directly. When the video has relatively little noise, estimation results will be accurate. However, as the increase of noise, the precision of motion estimation becomes quite low. With the influence of large noise, precision motion estimation is becoming difficult. So, we perform average filtering on the current noisy frame to restrain the influence of noise as possible before motion estimation, which is called prefiltering. After the prefiltering step, the large noise is restrained by a huge margin while the motion in the video remains well. In this case, although the frame has become quite fuzzy, motion estimation is not affected. Note that the prefiltering procedure is only implemented for motion estimation, rather than contributing for the image-signal denoising.Then, take advantage of the strong correlations between adjacent frames, motion estimation based on block-matching is performed by comparing current pre-filtered frame with past denoised frames. Block-matching (BM)  is a parN × N. Then, we compare the block in current prefiltering frame with blocks that have the same position in past denoised frames, respectively, and use ℓ2-distance as the measure whether motion exists in the block, which is called motion measure. The block distance can be calculated as2 denotes the ℓ2-norm, v(Bcurrentm) and v are the intensity gray level vectors of the mth block in current prefiltering frame and that in the ith past denoised frame, respectively. After calculating the block distances between current prefiltering frame and each past denoised frame, respectively, final motion measure of the mth block in current prefiltering frame can be gain by averaging them as follows:An illustrative example of block-matching is given in The averaged block distance measure the extent that motion exists in the block of current prefiltering frame. The larger the value is, the greater the likelihood is. Therefore, by calculating all of the block distances in current prefiltering frame, we can get global motion estimation.The discrete Kalman filter  is a set The prediction equations can be presented as follows:xk−1+ and pk−1+ represent the estimated state matrix and state covariance matrix of last state, respectively. xk− and pk− represent the priori estimates of state matrix and state covariance matrix for current state. Ak represents the state transition matrix which determines the relationship between the present state and the previous one. Matrix Bk relates the control input uk to current state. Qk−1 represents the covariance matrix of process noise.In the above equations, the superscripts “−” and “+” in the equations denote “before” and “after” each measurement, respectively. uk = 0. For the priori estimates for current state, we assume it is the same as last state. So, we can obtain following equations:In our case, we try to estimate current video frame based on the last one. So, the state matrix in above equations is just the video frame matrix. In the video sequences, there is not any control input, which means x, y) in the mth block of current noisy frame, we defineThe process noise in the video sequences is just resulted by the motion. So, for any pixel  in the frame, its filtered intensity value V can be calculated as follows:The bilateral filter was introduced by Tomasi and Manduchi  as a nonSx,y represents the neighbourhood centered in the pixel. V represents the intensity value of pixel  in the neighborhood. The weighting coefficient w consists of two parts, as shown in follows:ws is the weighting coefficient depended on the distance difference from the center pixel, while wr is the weighting coefficient depended on the intensity different from the center pixel. σs and σr are the variation coefficient of the two weighting coefficient, which control their degree of attenuation.In above equation, Only reducing the noise in the moving region of denoised frame from Kalman filtering is complicated. So, we apply the bilateral filter on whole current noisy frame. In this case, both the still region and moving region are denoised. Then, by weighting the two denoised frames from Kalman filtering and bilateral filtering, an integrated denoised frame can be obtained, in which the still region is from Kalman filtering and the moving region is from bilateral filtering.i, j) in the mth block, its weight value, wc, can be calculated as follows:After Kalman filtering and bilateral filtering, we have two denoised frames. One is from Kalman filtering, in which the still regions are well denoised but the motion regions remain the noisy information intactly. Another is from bilateral filtering, in which the motion regions are denoised to some extent. So, we integrate the two denoised frames by weighting them based on motion estimation results. The weight is based on Gaussian distribution, and for any pixel  and MSE is the mean squared error between the original and distorted images. SSIM is first calculated within local windows usingx and y are the image patches extracted from the local window from the original and noisy images, respectively. μx, σx2, and σxy are the mean, variance, and cross-correlation computed within the local window, respectively. The overall SSIM score of a video frame is computed as the average local SSIM scores. PSNR is the mostly widely used quality measure in the literature, but has been criticized for not correlating well with human visual perception [For providing quantitative quality evaluations of the denoising results, two objective criteria, namely the PSNR and the SSIM –24, are In order to evaluate the performance of our proposed ST-KBM algorithm, we compare it with some state-of-the-art video denoising algorithms, such as ST-GSM  and VBM3σ2 on each frame. In the experiments, four video sequences are selected from the publicly available video sequences , which hσ = 100. With the comparison to PSNR, our proposed ST-KBM algorithm performs slightly better than ST-GSM and VBM3D. However, for SSIM, it outperforms ST-GSM and VBM3D obviously, which means that the denoised video sequences by using ST-KBM algorithm have better visual quality. In Moreover, to further demonstrate the practicability of proposed ST-KBM algorithm, we implement practical experiments, as shown in In this paper, we have presented a ST-KBM model for large noisy video signals that have fixed background, and applied it to the restoration both of simulated noisy video sequences by additive white Gaussian noise and natural noisy video sequence in low light. Thanks to the operation of prefiltering, the motion estimation by comparing current pre-filtered frame with previously denoised frames is performed effectively. Then, Kalman filter and bilateral filter are applied for current noisy frame, respectively. Finally, by weighting the denoised frames from Kalman filtering and bilateral filtering, a satisfactory result is obtained. The experimental comparisons with state-of-the-art algorithms show that our proposed ST-KBM is competitive for large noisy video sequences that have a fixed background in terms of both subjective and objective evaluations.


The editors of BMC Emergency Medicine would like to thank all our reviewers who have contributed to the journal in Volume 13 (2013). Abhishek DeshmukhUSAAdi LahatIsraelA-Hyun ChoSouth KoreaAlbert Jacob SixNetherlandsAlexandre LautretteFranceAllan De CaenCanadaAndreas BurAustriaAndrew ArgentSouth AfricaAnne-Maree KellyAustraliaAsad PatanwalaUSABara RicouSwitzerlandBarbara LatenserUSABertrand RenaudFranceBrian RoweCanadaBrian RaynerSouth AfricaBronwyn MyersSouth AfricaBruno PereiraBrazilBryan BledsoeUSACarl LeierUSAChrister SandahlSwedenChuck HeiseUSADaniel ChanAustraliaDavid LumentaAustriaDavid WerringUKDeryk Ronald ChenTrinidad and TobagoDimitrios SiassakosUKDouwe PostmusNetherlandsEbbe Billmann ThorgersenNorwayEric LavonasUSAErica FrankCanadaEsther Van LieshoutNetherlandsFabian JaimesUSAGaye MooreAustraliaGeorges MionFranceGlenn ArendtsAustraliaHakan YamanTurkeyHamid ShokoohiUSAHans ThulesiusSwedenHomayoun Sadeghi-BazarganiIranIoana BratuCanadaJaimie MeyerUSAJames TsungUSAJames BernatUSAJan G ZijlstraNetherlandsJavad SalimiIranJi Hoe HeoSouth KoreaJim LemonAustraliaJohn OdellUSAJonathan SamuelMalawiJoseph CarcilloUSAJudith HahnUSAKaren FrancisAustraliaKarim BrohiUKKatja TaxisNetherlandsKatja E. WartenbergGermanyKhosro HekmatGermanyKoenraad MonsieursBelgiumLaurent BrochardSwitzerlandLeana WenUSAMarc SabbeBelgiumMargot KushelUSAMark MikkelsenUSAMassimo GirardisItalyMauro MendlowiczBrazilMehmet TopcuogluUSAMelanie TaylorAustraliaMelissa BentleyUSAMichael DavidUSAMichael JonesUKNadia AbdalaUSANadine SchuurmanCanadaNahathai WongpakaranThailandNele BrusselaersSwedenNeville ShineAustraliaOlaf AaslandNorwayPatrick BodenmannSwitzerlandPeter ShirleyUKPeter AitkenAustraliaPetr PatkaNetherlandsPhilip KoloNigeriaPinchas HalpernIsraelPradeep NavsariaSouth AfricaRaimondo PavarinItalyRobert HoeschUSARobert BooyAustraliaRobert MaunderCanadaSandra LeggatAustraliaSandra SchneiderUSASang-Cheon ChoiSouth KoreaSidgi HassonOmanSteven KarchUSATae Nyoung ChungSouth KoreaThomas LockerUKThomas KerrCanadaTolulope OyetunjiUSAToshiki YokoyamaJapanUlrich GullerCanadaWilliam PearsonUSAThe pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-227X/14/4/prepub


Because items near our hands are often more important than items far from our hands, the brain processes visual items near our hands differently than items far from our hands. Multiple experiments have attributed this processing difference to spatial attention, but the exact mechanism behind how spatial attention near our hands changes is still under investigation. The current experiments sought to differentiate between two of the proposed mechanisms: a prioritization of the space near the hands and a prolonged disengagement of spatial attention near the hands. To differentiate between these two accounts, we used the additional singleton paradigm in which observers searched for a shape singleton among homogenously shaped distractors. On half the trials, one of the distractors was a different color. Both the prioritization and disengagement accounts predict differently colored distractors near the hands will slow target responses more than differently colored distractors far from the hands, but the prioritization account also predicts faster responses to targets near the hands than far from the hands. The disengagement account does not make this prediction, because attention does not need to be disengaged when the target appears near the hand. We found support for the disengagement account: Salient distractors near the hands slowed responses more than those far from the hands, yet observers did not respond faster to targets near the hands. Interacting with objects in the real world requires several cognitive and perceptual processes to be integrated. Consider the simple example of picking up your coffee cup: This seemingly simple act requires (1) coordination between a visual representation of the object's shape and spatial location , (2) selective  processing to the object (necessary to minimize interference from other objects), and (3) the current state and position of one's body (necessary for planning a movement). Although interacting with objects may require other perceptual-cognitive operations, both spatial attention and body position are critical for the initial localization of and interaction with objects in everyday situations. Understanding how the body guides and interacts with visual inputs in directing spatial attention is important for accounts of real-world behavior.Bimodal neurons in premotor and parietal cortex have visual receptive fields that surround part of the body , and this visual receptive field shifts in space as the body part moves  = 31.21, p < 0.001. As expected, the item near hand factor interacted with the experiment factor, F = 15.05, p = 0.001, because, as depicted in Figures F = 3.83, p = 0.06, demonstrating that the hand had an effect. Slower responses to the target when the distractor is near the hand than far from the hand  = 0.65, p > 0.42, demonstrating that the hand had the same effect in the two experiments.Incorrect responses and RTs more than 2.5 standard deviations from an observers' condition mean were excluded from the analysis. This eliminated 1.6% of the data in Experiment 1A and 1.1% of the data in Experiment 1B. We submitted mean RTs to a mixed ANOVA with the within subject factors item near hand (Target or Distractor) and distance from hand (Near or Far). Experiment (1A or 1B) was a between subjects factor. To prevent any interference due to target and color singleton proximity Mounts, ,b, RTs iF1, 0 = 31.21F = 0.5, p > 0.47. The three way interaction between item near hand, distance from hand, and experiment also failed to reach significance, F = 0.16, p > 0.68. Although the non-significance of these interactions suggests hand position did not speed responses to items near the target, because this is a central question of our study, we conducted follow up analyses to investigate differences in RTs to targets near and far from the hands in each experiment.Interestingly, suggesting that the observers were slower to respond both when the target was near the hand and when the distractor was near the hand, the item near hand factor (target or distractor) and the distance from the hand factors did not interact, t-test comparing mean RTs to targets on the horizontal meridian near and far from the hand. Inconsistent with the prioritization account, in Experiment 1A, we found RTs to the target were no faster when the target was near the hand (765 ms) than far (758 ms), t(15) = 0.60, p > 0.55. It is possible this t-test failed to find a difference because hand position has a different effect on target processing when the color singleton is present than absent, so we performed two additional t-tests on RTs from Experiment 1A, one comparing RTs to targets near and far from the hand when the color singleton was absent, t(15) = 0.51, p > 0.61, and another when the color singleton was present, t(15) = 0.37, p > 0.72. Thus, these tests falsify the prioritization account and lend tentative support to the disengagement account of hand position's effect on cognition.To evaluate the effect of hand position on target processing, we compared RTs when the target was on the horizontal meridian and the distractor, when present, was on the vertical meridian. Thus, we conducted a t-tests as in Experiment 1A. Again, the results falsified the prioritization account since RTs to the target did not differ when the color singleton was near (1097 ms) and far from the hand (1110 ms), t(15) = 0.87, p > 0.4. Again, responses to targets near and far from the hand did not depend on the presence or absence of the color singleton because these t-tests also failed to reach significance . Thus, our experiments demonstrate that observers were no faster to respond to targets near their hands, which is inconsistent with an attentional prioritization of items near the hand account and lends tentative support to the slowed disengagement from items near the hands account.To evaluate if hand position affected responses to the target in Experiment 1B, we ran the same We repeated all RTs analyses with arcsine-transformed error rates. The mixed ANOVA and planned follow-up comparisons all failed to reach significance. We suspect these comparisons failed to reach significance because accuracy values were so close to ceiling. Importantly, the lack of significant values also demonstrates that the RT differences in this experiment cannot be explained by a speed accuracy trade-off.The mechanism behind hand position's effect on visual attention is an open question and the current experiment sought to differentiate between the prioritization of items near the hands (Reed et al., Our experiments did not seek to evaluate the perceptual-level processing (Cosman and Vecera, One additional explanation of our data is that the color singleton distractors slowed response times not because they captured attention, but because color singletons require more pre-attentional processing (i.e., a filtering cost; Folk and Remington, One interesting question is why Reed et al.  found faBecause of hand position's importance to many daily activities, spatial attention changes near the hands. The current experiments sought to evaluate between two accounts of exactly how spatial attention changes near the hands. The first account is that the space near the hands is prioritized and the second account is that observers are slower to disengage from items appearing near their hands. We failed to find support for the prioritization account, so we tentatively support the disengagement account that observers are slower to disengage from items near their hands. Thus, our experiments suggest that the hands might not always change the processing of items near the hands and instead hand position might extend the processing of these potentially important items.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.


A quality scalable extension design is proposed for the upcoming 3D video on the emerging standard for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). A novel interlayer simplified depth coding (SDC) prediction tool is added to reduce the amount of bits for depth maps representation by exploiting the correlation between coding layers. To further improve the coding performance, the coded prediction quadtree and texture data from corresponding SDC-coded blocks in the base layer can be used in interlayer simplified depth coding. In the proposed design, the multiloop decoder solution is also extended into the proposed scalable scenario for texture views and depth maps, and will be achieved by the interlayer texture prediction method. The experimental results indicate that the average Bjøntegaard Delta bitrate decrease of 54.4% can be gained in interlayer simplified depth coding prediction tool on multiloop decoder solution compared with simulcast. Consequently, significant rate savings confirm that the proposed method achieves better performance. In January 2013, the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding has finalized a final draft about the next generation video standard, that is, High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) [Generally, scalable video coding is a highly attractive solution to the problems caused by the characteristics of modern video transmission systems. The scalable video coding method can be used to achieve the adaptation of a bitrate with features such as temporal and spatial scalabilities . The quaDepth-Image-Based Rendering (DIBR) is widely used for view synthesis in 3D video coding. Thus, the texture video and the associated depth map are required to be scaled simultaneously . DIBR noThe rest of this paper is organized as follows. As one of the extensions of HEVC, the upcoming 3D video coding makes use of the efficient single-view coding tools used in HEVC. HEVC is the latest video coding standard developed by a joint effort between ISO/IEC and ITU-T and succeeding H.264/AVC. This design still follows a traditional hybrid coding approach , such asThe proposed quality scalable scheme employs interlayer simplified depth coding and interlayer texture prediction to remove interlayer redundancy based on the multiloop decoder structure. The multiloop decoding solution is integrated into the proposed scenario as a whole framework of the scalable 3D video coding. The interlayer texture prediction is considered as a basic prediction mode that the base layer (BL) needs to be decoded entirely before the enhancement layers are reconstructed. The transform and quantization processes of interlayer texture prediction predict that CUs are the same as an intrapredicted CU on the QP of the enhancement layer, in which discrete sine transform and discrete cosine transform are applied to the different types of TUs. As an alternative intracoding mode, the SDC approach is added into the intracoded block, and the prediction mode is still INTRA for an SDC-coded block with additional SDC_Flag signals in depth map coding . The infThe interlayer SDC tool is sufficient in generating a good prediction signal and eliminates ringing artifacts for SDC-coded blocks. Instead of coding quantized transform coefficients, the following three parts of information are coded in SDC-coded blocks. The first part is the type of segmentation/prediction of the current block with possible values of DC, DMM, or Planar. The second part is the additional prediction information when the DMM mode is selected as the type of segmentation. The third part is the residual value for each resulting segment, which is present in the original, uncompressed depth map using a depth lookup table (DLT). Initial analysis shows that the DLT is constructed by analyzing a certain number of frames of the input sequence before coding. The residual is obtained from the difference of the prediction index and the original index according to the DLT. The structure of the algorithm is described as follows .The interlayer SDC utilizes the decompressed date from the collocated distortionless SDC-coded CUs due to the characteristics of distortionless SDC-coded CUs in the base layer. This paper considers the interlayer SDC method as an extension of the intracoding mode, in which the type of segmentation/prediction, additional prediction information, and residual value of the index are obtained from the corresponding base layer CU. The prediction image of the current enhancement layer is rebuilt based on the type of segmentation/prediction and additional prediction information, which have been selected by the traditional SDC in the base layer. The reconstructed image is derived from the residual value of the index and the index prediction image. No transform and quantization processes occur in the interlayer simplified depth coding prediction method, in which only the information of the SDC in the base layer needs to be decoded for the enhancement layer. Thus, no additional data are transmitted for the enhancement layer except a flag of the interlayer SDC mode in the proposed interlayer SDC tools. When the “Inter_SDC_Flag” that is signaled in the enhancement layer is set to be true, the current block is decoded in an interlayer SDC decoder. The “SDC_Flag” is the coding identifier of the traditional SDC for 3D video coding. The “SDC_Flag” and “Inter_SDC_Flag” are used to codetermine the decoding mode in the enhancement layer. mode is the minimalized rate-distortion cost of the current mode. The RD (·) is the rate-distortion cost of every mode by the RDO (VSO).Moreover, the DLT in the base layer is used in the inter-layer SDC. The RD cost of interlayer texture prediction and the interlayer SDC method is calculated for the enhancement layer CUs in addition to the RD selection procedure used in unmodified 3D video encoder. The optimal prediction mode is selected to minimize the cost function:The scalable 3D video coding theme is implemented based on HTM 6.0 . The comThe simulcast and the scalable scenarios in interlayer SDC prediction with interlayer texture prediction are compared in We presented a scalable 3D video coding theme on the emerging HEVC, which supports two interlayer prediction methods on a multiloop decoder structure. The interlayer texture prediction method simultaneously exploits the interlayer correlation for texture views and depth maps. The interlayer SDC prediction tool achieves significant bitrate decrease and complexity reducing for the depth maps. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed scenario. Improvement of the coding performance of scalable 3D video coding theme can be examined in future research. More interlayer prediction methods will be proposed to accomplish the scalability on 3D video coding.


We examine the two-dimensional extension of the model of Kessler and Sander of competition between two species identical except for dispersion rates. In this class of models, the spatial inhomogeneity of reproduction rates gives rise to an implicit cost of dispersal, due to the tendency to leave favorable locations. Then, as in the Hamilton-May model with its explicit dispersal cost, the tradeoff between dispersal case and the beneficial role of dispersal in limiting fluctuations, leads to an advantage of one dispersal rate over another, and the eventual extinction of the disadvantaged species. In two dimensions we find that while the competition leads to the elimination of one species at high and low population density, at intermediate densities the two species can coexist essentially indefinitely. This is a new phenomenon not present in either the one-dimensional form of the Kessler-Sander model nor in the totally connected Hamilton-May model, and points to the importance of geometry in the question of dispersal. A central question in ecology is how species determine their migration rate. Migration entails a number of possible benefits to the population, among them reducing overcrowding areas and the discovery of new resources to exploit. There are also significant costs associated with migration. Especially in patchy environments, there may be a significant risk of death (due to predation or other exogenous causes) in trying to cross over unsuitable areas to find a colonizable site. Presumably, migration rates are under evolutionary control, and so can in principle be adjusted to some optimal level. There have been a large number of studies in this field, both from an analytical and a numerical perspective.The current work is an extension of the work of Kessler and Sander f and s represent the local population density of the fast (f) and slow (s) migrating species, with Here, This strong result is in sharp contrast to what occurs in the individual based models originated by Hamilton and May Kessler and Sander To verify their findings, Kessler and Sander studied an individual based version of the one-dimensional Dockery model. The system has two species of individuals, fast and slow, residing on sites of a one-dimensional lattice They set The model we examine herein is the natural two-dimensional generalization of the Kessler-Sander model. The system consists of a square two-dimensional lattice, The above results are consistent with the picture that emerged from Kessler and Sander’s simulations of the one-dimensional model. However, we show in To investigate further, we scan the In order to clarify if the apparent coexistence phase is real or only the result of the finite running time of the simulation, we measured the time until victory as the coexistence region is approached from either above  were found by least-squares fitting. The graphs lead to the conclusion that even after an infinite time  there will be no victory of either population because the winning times diverge as the coexistence region boundary is crossed.It is interesting to note that the exponents characterizing the divergence are different on the two sides of the transition. In addition, the exponents decrease with increasing To point out the contrast between the coexistence dynamics we see in the two dimensional system and the behavior of the one dimensional simulation, we have measured the average extinction time as a function of Up till now, we have focused only on one specific pattern of inhomogeneity in the two dimensional system, namely the “checkerboard”. We now investigate a “striped” pattern of inhomogeneity, which is a uniform extension in the second dimension of the one dimensional  :(6)We present snapshots from the simulation in As in the checkerboard patterned system, there is a correlation between the local growth rate and the fraction of fasts in this coexistence state. In the striped system, it is easier to quantify this behavior, by averaging over the direction transverse to the stripes. A we see in The presence of coexistence in the striped In conclusion, we have shown that spatial inhomogeneity in a two-dimensional system leads to the coexistence of two different dispersal strategies, for some intermediate range of densities. This feature is absent in both one-dimensional systems and in fully-connected systems. The transition to coexistence is marked by the power-law divergence of the extinction time of the under-performing strategy, as the carrying capacity is varied. More study is required to clarify the nature of this coexistence phase, and the critical behavior associated with the transition.The phenomenon of coexistence in an inhomogeneous environment is not surprising from the perspective of niche theory. The “oases”, with their high reproduction rate, are evidently favorable for the slows and the “deserts” for the fast dispersers. However, given the density-dependent nature of the effective fitness, this is a simplistic view. In one dimension, one species may exhibit a temporary advantage, however in the fullness of time, one species always drives its competitor to extinction. Evidently, however, in the two dimensional environment, this is no longer true near the region where the advantage changes between species in a one dimensional patterned environment. The question of coexistence evidently requires a more refined understanding.Even with a standard density-independent fitness landscape, the interplay of dispersal and niches raises interesting questions worthy of further study. Dispersal will at a minimum tend to wash out the niche boundaries, with some degree of mixing at the niche boundaries. The question that arises is whether there is some degree of dispersal that wipes out completely the underlying niche structure of the environment and leads to domination by a single “compromise” strategy. In our system, the fairly small difference between the population balance in the “oases” and the “deserts” means that dispersal effects are strong enough to wash out most, but not all, of the differences between the niches. Given the absence of a clear boundary between the two niches, it is surprising that in the two dimensional system, coexistence is still possible. Comparing the present model to one with density-independent fitness differences should be very instructive.


Drosophila CG15920 gene. This encodes pro-resilin, the first exon of which was expressed in E. coli and used to raise the antibody. We show that in frozen sections from two species, the antibody labels precisely those parts of the metathoracic energy stores that fluoresce under UV illumination. The presence of resilin in these insects is thus now further supported by a molecular criterion that is immunohistochemically specific.The rubbery protein resilin appears to form an integral part of the energy storage structures that enable many insects to jump by using a catapult mechanism. In plant sucking bugs that jump , the energy generated by the slow contractions of huge thoracic jumping muscles is stored by bending composite bow-shaped parts of the internal thoracic skeleton. Sudden recoil of these bows powers the rapid and simultaneous movements of both hind legs that in turn propel a jump. Until now, identification of resilin at these storage sites has depended exclusively upon characteristics that may not be specific: its fluorescence when illuminated with specific wavelengths of ultraviolet (UV) light and extinction of that fluorescence at low pH. To consolidate identification we have labelled the cuticular structures involved with an antibody raised against a product of the  Aeshna can be held at twice its length for a month without experiencing creep only to return rapidly to its original length once the load is removed Resilin is found largely in insects and crustaceans but has features in common with other elastic proteins that occur more widely Resilin also performs in a different capacity at locations where large amounts of elastic energy storage are required for sudden, one-time release The most completely analyzed examples in this high power category come from study of the jumping prowess of froghoppers and planthoppers (Hemiptera Auchenorrhyncha). These most accomplished jumpers of all insects, depend on the incorporation of resilin into hard cuticle to form a composite material that can store energy The presence and correct identification of resilin has thus become a key indicator that a structure can be used as an energy store for powering movements. Only two characteristic signatures are currently available for the identification of resilin and both depend upon its fluorescence properties. First, it fluoresces bright blue, with a characteristic wavelength emission under a specific range of excitation with ultraviolet illumination Drosophila melanogaster gene products first implicated a Drosophila gene present as a single copy, CG15920 DrosophilaComparisons between the amino acid sequences of tryptic peptides from locust resilin and those predicted from Drosophila melanogaster. The first exon of this gene has been cloned in Escherichia coli, in which it expressed a soluble protein, which when cross-linked formed a resilient, rubbery hydrogel called Rec-1 resilin To identify resilin protein and its location more closely, we used this fly orthologue provided by the gene CG15920 in Philaenus spumarius  and Delphacodes sp.  were collected in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada in September and October 2010. With the local surface cuticle opened to permit fluid entry, they were fixed for 4 h in 4% formaldehyde, from paraformaldehyde, in 0.1M phosphate buffer (PB), then left overnight in 25% sucrose solution in PB saline. The preparations were next submerged in Tissue-Tek OCT , frozen in liquid nitrogen, and the metathorax cut into cross sections at thicknesses between 10 and 50 µm on a cryostat (Reichert-Jung 2800 Frigocut N). The sections were then rehydrated for 25 min in a 0.25% solution of Triton-X in PB (PBT), permeabilized in 2% PBT for 10 min, then for a further 10 min in 0.25% PBT. They were then blocked in 5% normal goat serum (NGS) for 30 min and incubated overnight at 4°C in a polyclonal anti-rec-1 antibody, at a dilution of 1∶100 in 2.5% NGS. This antibody had been raised in rabbits to a recombinant protein (derived from the first exon of the Drosophila melanogaster resilin gene CG15920) expressed in E. coliJumping plant bugs, −3, 10−4 and 10−5 and each was then mixed with the primary antibody solution, at the same concentration of 1∶100 as used for direct labelling. The antigen-antibody mixture was allowed to stand for 24 h in a refrigerator at 4°C and was then centrifuged for 30 min at 20,000 g. The supernatant (the putatively preadsorbed serum) was then used in place of the primary antibody in the same immunocytochemical procedure described above, and the sections viewed in the same confocal microscope.To validate the protein-specificity of a fluorescent label it is essential to check the specificity of the antibody to the antigen The same sections labelled with the primary and secondary antibodies were also examined and photographed on an Olympus BX51WI compound microscope with a MPlan10X/0.25 NA objective under ultraviolet (UV) or white epi-illumination. Images were captured with a MicroPublisher 5.0 digital camera  as colour (RGB) TIFF files. The UV excitation was provided by an Olympus U-LH100HGAPO, 100 W mercury arc, conditioned by a Semrock DAPI-5060B Brightline series UV filter set  within a sharp-edged excitation band from 350 nm to 407 nm (1% transmission limits). The resulting blue fluorescence emission was collected in a similarly sharp-edged band at wavelengths from 413 nm to 483 nm through a dichromatic beam splitter and an emission filter. Images captured at the same focal planes under UV and visible light were superimposed in Canvas 12 . Images of the antibody labelling and those illuminated by UV light from the two microscopes were superimposed in the same way.Philaenus  The energy stores for jumping in hilaenus  are enlahilaenus  [17]. ThIn whole animals with the surface cuticle dissected away locally, substantial parts of a pleural arch fluoresced bright blue when illuminated in UV within a specific wavelength range . The bluPhilaenus treated with the anti-rec-1 antibody, the green signal shown in In sections of the thorax of Delphacodes  of the antigen used  expressed in E. coliAnopheles gambiae) shows little evidence of secondary structure The antibody was raised against the Rec-l resilin product of the The blue fluorescence attributed to resilin when illuminated with specific UV wavelengths has been found in a much wider range of insects and crustaceans than the insects examined so far with the anti-rec-1 antibody. If this too reveals resilin, as seems likely, must this imply that resilin possesses the same properties wherever it occurs in arthropods?Drosophila species and these show sequence similarities to related genes from other insect groups A. gambiae - lack the latter region and thus may not be cuticular proteins at all Pro-resilin gene orthologues have been identified in 12 The various roles that resilin plays as a cuticular protein in many insects indicate that at least the requirements for stiffness associated with this protein must differ. Resilin is present in tendons, at the articulations of hairs with their sockets, in the membranes of limb joints, and in energy storage devices for jumping. The varying mechanical requirements for the functions that resilin must subserve at these different locations could be met in a number of ways.3/g, more than 10 times greater than that for the pads associated with the hind legs of fleas First, the fractional amount of resilin that is present clearly varies enormously. For example, in the pleural arches of froghoppers the quotient of the volume of resilin per body mass is 2.3 mmSecond, the stiffness of the resilin should be changed by altering the density of its dityrosine cross links. There are no direct measurements of the stiffness of resilin in different locations in different insect species to indicate whether this option has been exploited, but the percentage of tyrosine in known resilin-like proteins varies from 0.4 to 12.3 percent Third, resilin may be incorporated into composites or metamaterials, through the chitin binding domains present in some resilin molecules So far it seems that resilin is used in two distinct ways by insects. In the first, it acts as an energy-conserving buffer for rhythmically active, fast mechanical movements, such as those of the wings during flight, or the tymbals used in cicadas to generate sound In all these examples the mechanics of the movements are strongly influenced by structural components. In turn the latter exert profound constraints on the motor patterns that need to be generated by the nervous system and on the performance of the muscles. The execution of a successful movement depends on the interactions between all elements, with the mechanical construction often providing solutions to problems that would be complex for the nervous and muscular systems to solve alone. It is thus critical to be able to identify the presence of key materials such as resilin within body structures and to consider the role these may play in the execution of a particular movement. Hitherto, the identification of resilin has been rather loosely based. An antibody that recognises resilin in such a wide range of species thus provides an important diagnostic tool, one that allows resilin to be distinguished from other molecules that may exhibit similar fluorescent characteristics, and is in turn key to the clearer interpretations of how animals are enabled to make movements.


Malnutrition is common across varying patient populations, particularly older adults, and sarcopenia prevalence increases with advancing age. Both malnutrition and sarcopenia are associated with substantial adverse outcomes affecting both the patient and the healthcare system, including increased morbidity, mortality, rehospitalization rates, and healthcare costs. Healthcare practitioners may assess patients for either malnutrition or sarcopenia; however, many patients clinically present with both conditions, resulting in the syndrome, Malnutrition-Sarcopenia Syndrome, which is the clinical presentation of both malnutrition and accelerated age-associated loss of lean body mass, strength, and/or functionality. Clinicians are urged to screen, assess, and treat these conditions currently so as to adequately address the full spectrum of patients' nutritional issues. By examining aspects of both conditions, clinicians can more fully assess their patients' clinical and nutritional status and can tailor targeted therapies to meet their needs and improve outcomes. This proposed syndrome embodies the inherent association of malnutrition and sarcopenia, highlighting their combined impact on clinical outcomes. The objective of this review paper is to characterize Malnutrition-Sarcopenia Syndrome to advance clinical practice, by providing clinicians with the necessary background information to integrate nutritional assessment along with loss of muscle mass and functionality in their everyday clinical practice. Historically, malnutrition has been defined as a condition of an imbalance of energy, protein, and other nutrients that cause measurable negative effects on body composition, physical function, and clinical outcomes . TypicalOne critical clinical aspect often not assessed in nutrition screening or assessment is lean body mass or muscle mass loss. Lean body mass (LBM) is defined as that portion of the body mass that is everything but fat and includes water, mineral, muscle, and other protein-rich structures  . Skeletaα and interleukin 6. Next to the intrinsic, age-related processes, a multitude of extrinsic and behavioral factors can aggravate the development and/or progression of sarcopenia, leading to secondary sarcopenia, such as disuse and lack of physical activity, malnutrition, chronic inflammation, and comorbidity. As such, sarcopenia can be thought of as both a process and an outcome. Sarcopenia as a condition is a major cause of frailty and disability in older adults; as an active process, it is present in every person reaching adult life [Sarcopenia is further classified into either primary or secondary categories. Primary sarcopenia, when no specific etiologic cause can be identified, is progressive and associated with the impact of aging: a reduction in motor neurons, alterations in skeletal muscle tissue including mitochondrial dysfunction, changes in the hormonal milieu  from the ilSIRENTE study. The results of the study indicated that sarcopenia is prevalent among community-dwelling older adults with no differences based on gender (25%) [Using the EWGSOP diagnostic criteria, Landi et al. evaluated the baseline data of adults who were 80 years of age or older (er (25%) . Using ter (25%) .P < 0.001). Moreover, functional impairment was 2-3-fold higher in older subjects with class II sarcopenia than those with normal muscle mass, even after adjusting for age, race, BMI, health behaviors, and comorbidities [Reductions in muscle mass among older adults are common and can contribute to functional impairment, disability, increased risk for falls , loweredbidities .n = 1413, 74.3 ± 5.6 years of age) and showed that low fat-free mass was significantly associated with mortality among individuals over 74 years of age [In many patient populations, malnutrition and sarcopenia are present in parallel and manifest clinically through a combination of decreased nutrient intake, decreased body weight, along with a decrease in muscle mass, strength, and/or physical function. This leads us to coin the proposed clinical syndrome of Malnutrition-Sarcopenia Syndrome (MSS). MSS is the clinical presentation of both malnutrition and accelerated age-associated loss of lean body mass, strength, and/or physical performance. Malnutrition and sarcopenia are each independently associated with negative health consequences that impact older adults across health care settings. Patients with malnutrition and/or sarcopenia are at risk of increased morbidity and mortality, decreased quality of life and functioning and increased rehospitalization, length of hospital stay, and healthcare costs. Importantly, malnutrition and sarcopenia are associated with increased mortality –27. Cedes of age . Furthers of age . The losMalnutrition and sarcopenia are associated with increased morbidity, in particular increased infection and complications rates, including falls  and disaMalnutrition and loss of muscle mass compromise the quality of life and functional capacity of aging adults. Malnutrition is associated with declines in functional capacity in hospitalized patients . Moreove2 or weight loss of greater than 10% stayed in the hospital even longer at 18.3 and 17.5 days, respectively [In addition to increased risk of infections and functional impairment, malnutrition and loss of muscle mass are also associated with increased hospital length of stay (LOS) , 52–55. ectively . Hospitaectively , 61–64. ectively . Anotherectively . The relCollectively, malnutrition, loss of muscle mass, strength, and functional capacity are accelerated in hospitalized older adults , 62, 66.£13 billion per year: £8 billion is for healthcare, including hospital inpatients and outpatients, and primary care , and £5 billion is for nursing, residential, and home care services [Due to their associated comorbid conditions, malnutrition and sarcopenia impose a major economic burden on healthcare systems, contributing to escalating healthcare costs. A study of hospitalized patients showed significantly increased costs in malnourished patients. The mean daily expense was $228.00 per malnourished patients versus $138.00 per well-nourished patients, a cost increase of 60.5%, after including costs for medications and tests, the cost to treat malnourished patients rose by 308.9% . Accordiservices . Additioservices .recent history of reduced appetite that resulted in poor food intake,unintentional weight loss of 3 kg or more over the last 3 months, low muscle mass , decreased gait speed (less than 0.8 meter/second), andreduced hand grip strength for age and gender. Clinicians should integrate nutrition assessment with sarcopenia screening for optimal evaluation of these two inter-related nutritional issues to help improve patients' clinical outcomes. A variety of malnutrition screening tools are available such as the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) , MalnutrFuture research is warranted to determine the reliability and validity of this assessment tool across patient populations and settings.Malnutrition and sarcopenia are both commonly occurring conditions across patient populations, especially older adults. Both conditions result in numerous and substantial negative outcomes to both the patient and the health care system, including increased morbidity and mortality, decreased patient quality of life and functionality, and increased health care costs and rehospitalization rates. Historically, patients have been screened or assessed by healthcare practitioners for either malnutrition or sarcopenia, but rarely for both conditions concurrently. However, many patients present clinically with both conditions in parallel and this combination, or the malnutrition sarcopenia syndrome should be the focus of future nutrition screening and assessment in at-risk patient populations. Examining the entirety of the patient's nutritional and functional status through screening and assessment for both malnutrition and sarcopenia will enable healthcare practitioners to better determine the presence of MSS in their patients and target interventions to fit the patients' needs. Moreover, as the world is aging and older adults will utilize health care services at an increased rate, this could ultimately result in better patient care and outcomes in this unique and expanding patient population. Clinicians and researchers are called upon to work together to develop a practical, reliable, and valid tool for MSS that is appropriate for implementation into a variety of clinical practice settings, with the aim of identifying patients with MSS and providing the appropriately targeted interventions.