Exploiting Non-Local Priors via Self-Convolution for Highly-Efficient Image Restoration.

Constructing effective priors is critical to solving ill-posed inverse problems in image processing and computational imaging. Recent works focused on exploiting non-local similarity by grouping similar patches for image modeling, and demonstrated state-of-the-art results in many image restoration applications. However, compared to classic methods based on filtering or sparsity, non-local algorithms are more time-consuming, mainly due to the highly inefficient block matching step, i.e., distance between every pair of overlapping patches needs to be computed. In this work, we propose a novel Self-Convolution operator to exploit image non-local properties in a unified framework. We prove that the proposed Self-Convolution based formulation can generalize the commonly-used non-local modeling methods, as well as produce results equivalent to standard methods, but with much cheaper computation. Furthermore, by applying Self-Convolution, we propose an effective multi-modality image restoration scheme, which is much more efficient than conventional block matching for non-local modeling. Experimental results demonstrate that (1) Self-Convolution with fast Fourier transform implementation can significantly speed up most of the popular non-local image restoration algorithms, with two-fold to nine-fold faster block matching, and (2) the proposed online multi-modality image restoration scheme achieves superior denoising results than competing methods in both efficiency and effectiveness on RGB-NIR images. The code for this work is publicly available at https://github.com/GuoLanqing/Self-Convolution.

Anti-hepatoma activity of a novel compound glaucocalyxin H in vivo and in vitro.

Glaucocalyxin H (GLH) is a new compound isolated from a traditional Chinese medical herb Isodon japonica var. glaucocalyx which has been used for folk medicine. This study was carried out for the first time to investigate the potential role of GLH in anti-hepatoma activity and underlying mechanisms in it. GLH could inhibit the growth of tumor in mice and induce HepG2 cells to death as assessed by the tumor reduction assay, toxic assay, morphological change, and survival rate assay. Many antitumor drugs originated from plants could inhibit the growth of tumor by inducing cells to apoptosis. The morphological changes of HepG2 cells treated with different concentrations of GLH under fluorescence and electron microscope and apoptotic rates were detected to verify its effect on apoptosis. As shown in the study, GLH could induce HepG2 cells to apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner. Bcl2 and Bax proteins played important roles in apoptosis and the disequilibrium between Bcl2 and Bax might result in apoptosis. The expression of Bax protein was upregulated and Bcl2 protein was downregulated in HepG2 cells treated with GLH assessed by Western blotting, and they were in a dose-dependent manner. Taken together, GLH can inhibit the growth of hepatoma cells in vivo and in vitro by inducing cell apoptosis due to the decreased Bcl2 and increased Bax proteins suggesting that GLH could be a potential candidate as an anti-hepatoma agent for the therapeutic treatment of hepatoma.

1α,6ß,7ß,11α,15ß-Penta-hydr-oxy-7α,20-ep-oxy-ent-kaur-16-ene.

The title compound, C(20)H(30)O(6), a natural ent-kaurane diterpenoid, named nervosanin B, was obtained from the medicinal plant Isodon serra. It is composed of four rings with the expected trans and cis junctions. One of the six-membered rings is in a chair conformation, the other two are in boat conformations and the five-membered ring adopts an evenlope conformation. The mol-ecules stack along the a axis and are linked together by inter-molecular O-H⋯O hydrogen bonds. Two intramolecular O-H⋯O interactions also occur.

Chemical constituents of Isodon nervosus and their cytotoxicity.

Two new ent-kaurane diterpenoids, 6,20,15alpha-trihydroxy-6,7-seco-1alpha,7-olide-ent-kaur-16-ene (1) and 7beta,12alpha-dihydroxy-6beta,15beta-diacetoxy-7alpha,20-epoxy-ent-kaur-2,16-dien-1-one (2), together with the six known compounds, were isolated from the aerial part of Isodon nervosus. The structures of the new compounds were determined by spectral methods (1D, 2D NMR, and MS). Six compounds were assayed for their cytotoxicity against HL60, SMMC-7721, and HeLa human cell lines. Compounds 5, 7, and 8 showed significant cytotoxicity.