Robust Hand Gesture Recognition Using a Deformable Dual-Stream Fusion Network Based on CNN-TCN for FMCW Radar.

Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) using Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars is difficult because of the inherent variability and ambiguity caused by individual habits and environmental differences. This paper proposes a deformable dual-stream fusion network based on CNN-TCN (DDF-CT) to solve this problem. First, we extract range, Doppler, and angle information from radar signals with the Fast Fourier Transform to produce range-time (RT) and range-angle (RA) maps. Then, we reduce the noise of the feature map. Subsequently, the RAM sequence (RAMS) is generated by temporally organizing the RAMs, which captures a target's range and velocity characteristics at each time point while preserving the temporal feature information. To improve the accuracy and consistency of gesture recognition, DDF-CT incorporates deformable convolution and inter-frame attention mechanisms, which enhance the extraction of spatial features and the learning of temporal relationships. The experimental results show that our method achieves an accuracy of 98.61%, and even when tested in a novel environment, it still achieves an accuracy of 97.22%. Due to its robust performance, our method is significantly superior to other existing HGR approaches.

Effects of frozen storage on the quality characteristics of frozen whole buckwheat extruded noodles.

The effects of frozen storage (-18 °C, 180 days) on the quality of frozen whole buckwheat extruded noodles (FWBEN) were investigated. The water content of FWBEN decreased, while the reheating time, water absorption, and dry consumption rate increased with prolonged storage time. Cooking loss increased from 3.20% to 4.31%. Texture analysis indicated that the hardness initially increased, then decreased. Microstructure results showed that the starch gel structure was damaged to a certain extent after storage for a longer period of time, whereas the porous structure became non-uniform with the appearance of cracks. The relative crystallinity gradually increased, and the freezable water content decreased with prolonged storage. These results demonstrated that FWBEN quality was affected by starch retrogradation and ice recrystallization. In general, FWBEN quality was relatively stable during 180 days of frozen storage at -18 °C.

A smartphone-based zero-effort method for mitigating epidemic propagation.

A large number of epidemics, including COVID-19 and SARS, quickly swept the world and claimed the precious lives of large numbers of people. Due to the concealment and rapid spread of the virus, it is difficult to track down individuals with mild or asymptomatic symptoms with limited human resources. Building a low-cost and real-time epidemic early warning system to identify individuals who have been in contact with infected individuals and determine whether they need to be quarantined is an effective means to mitigate the spread of the epidemic. In this paper, we propose a smartphone-based zero-effort epidemic warning method for mitigating epidemic propagation. Firstly, we recognize epidemic-related voice activity relevant to epidemics spread by hierarchical attention mechanism and temporal convolutional network. Subsequently, we estimate the social distance between users through sensors built-in smartphone. Furthermore, we combine Wi-Fi network logs and social distance to comprehensively judge whether there is spatiotemporal contact between users and determine the duration of contact. Finally, we estimate infection risk based on epidemic-related vocal activity, social distance, and contact time. We conduct a large number of well-designed experiments in typical scenarios to fully verify the proposed method. The proposed method does not rely on any additional infrastructure and historical training data, which is conducive to integration with epidemic prevention and control systems and large-scale applications.

Insight into multi-scale structural evolution during gelatinization process of normal and waxy maize starch.

By using a mimicked heating with ex-situ liquid nitrogen flash freezing method, multi-scale structural evolution behaviors of normal maize starch (NMS) and waxy maize starch (WMS) during gelatinization process were studied. The results from SEM, X-ray diffraction (XRD), FTIR/solid state NMR spectroscopy and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) showed that NMS and WMS exhibited differently structural evolution behavior during gelatinization process. As the temperature increase, the proportion of the NMS granules with cavity gradually increased, while after heating beyond (peak gelatinization temperature (Tp) + conclusion gelatinization temperature (Tc))/2 the disappearance of starch granule integrity occurred for WMS. The relative crystallinity of NMS declined from 32.8 to 15.26% gradually, as that of WMS declined from 42.43 to 13.09% with a sharply descent when heated beyond (Tp + Tc)/2. The loss of short-range order structure of NMS and WMS showed same trends according to FTIR and NMR. Semicrystalline lamellae of NMS became thinner gradually while that of WMS showed an apparently narrowing after heating beyond (Tp + Tc)/2. These results suggest that the destruction of double helix in amylopectin structure had greatly influence on the larger scale structure of starch samples. This strategy is important for thorough understanding and profiting starch-based food processing. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13197-022-05520-2.

Extruded whole buckwheat noodles: effects of processing variables on the degree of starch gelatinization, changes of nutritional components, cooking characteristics and in vitro starch digestibility.

The effects of processing variables on the degree of gelatinization (DG), changes of nutritional components, cooking characteristics and in vitro starch digestibility of extruded whole buckwheat noodles were investigated and Pearson's correlations were explored. Results showed that buckwheat noodles with different DG values were obtained by changing the extrusion temperature (T = 100, 120, 140 and 160 °C) and moisture content (M = 32%, 40% and 48%). Both the total flavonoid content (TFC) and total phenolic content (TPC) were decreased with the increase of extrusion temperature, while they had the highest retention value when extruded at a moisture content of 40%. Severe extrusion conditions (high temperature and high shear) significantly increased the soluble dietary fiber (SDF) content from 3.13% to 4.73%. The cooking qualities of buckwheat noodles such as the cooking loss, broken rate and texture characteristics were positively related to the DG, while noodles became over-cooked when the DG was higher than 87.96%, resulting in the deterioration of cooking quality. In vitro starch digestibility results showed that severe processing conditions promoted the susceptibility of the starches to enzyme hydrolysis and the predicted glycemic index (pGI) increased from 78.04 to 86.92. These findings indicated that appropriate extrusion processing variables are critical to produce whole buckwheat noodles from the nutritional and quality perspective.

Curative effect of endostar combined with oxaliplatin in the treatment of primary hepatic carcinoma and its influence on immune cells.

Curative effect and adverse reactions of oxaliplatin combined with endostar in the interventional treatment of primary hepatic carcinoma (PHC) were investigated. A total of 101 PHC patients from October 2012 to December 2014 in The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University were retrospectively collected. Fifty patients in combined therapy group were treated with oxaliplatin combined with endostar, while the remaining 51 patients in oxaliplatin group were treated with oxaliplatin alone. The treatment lasted for a total of 4 cycles (20 days as 1 cycle). The ratios of cluster of differentiation 3 (CD3)+, CD4+ and CD8+ were detected via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The objective response rate in combined therapy group was 92.00%, which was significantly higher than that in oxaliplatin group (74.51%). The main adverse reactions showed no statistical difference between the two groups (P>0.05). The median progression-free survival (PFS) was 8.6 months in combined therapy group and 6.3 months in oxaliplatin group, while the median overall survival (OS) was 12.9 months in combined therapy group and 10.6 months in oxaliplatin group. After treatment, CD4+ and CD3+ levels in the peripheral blood in both groups were obviously lower than those before treatment, but the CD8+ level was obviously higher than that before treatment. At the same time, changes in the ratio of T lymphocyte subsets in combined therapy group were superior to those in oxaliplatin group, displaying statistically significant differences (P<0.05). Oxaliplatin combined with endostar has a good curative effect in the treatment of PHC with mild adverse reactions, which can prolong the survival time of patients, improve the levels of T lymphocyte subsets and increase the immunity of patients, so it is worthy of promotion and application in clinic.

Zafirlukast attenuates advanced glycation end-products (AGEs)-induced degradation of articular extracellular matrix (ECM).

Zafirlukast, a leukotriene receptor antagonist, has been shown to exert a wide range of effects including anti-asthmatic, anti-inflammatory and oral anti-bacterial. Osteoarthritis is one of the most prevalent age-related public health burdens in the modern world. In the present study, we applied zafirlukast in the treatment of human primary chondrocytes and found that it exerts potent anti-osteoarthritic effects. Zafirlukast inhibited AGEs-induced degradation of the articular extracellular matrix by suppressing expression of MMPs, ADAMTS, NOX-4, generation of ROS, and activation of NF-κB via the IκBα/JNK/AP-1 pathway through targeted inhibition of CysLTR1. These findings suggest that zafirlukast possesses a protective effect against AGEs- induced damage and dysfunction in human chondrocytes.