A Variational Autoencoder Cascade Generative Adversarial Network for Scalable 3D Object Generation and Reconstruction.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) for 3D volume generation and reconstruction, such as shape generation, visualization, automated design, real-time simulation, and research applications, are receiving increased amounts of attention in various fields. However, challenges such as limited training data, high computational costs, and mode collapse issues persist. We propose combining a Variational Autoencoder (VAE) and a GAN to uncover enhanced 3D structures and introduce a stable and scalable progressive growth approach for generating and reconstructing intricate voxel-based 3D shapes. The cascade-structured network involves a generator and discriminator, starting with small voxel sizes and incrementally adding layers, while subsequently supervising the discriminator with ground-truth labels in each newly added layer to model a broader voxel space. Our method enhances the convergence speed and improves the quality of the generated 3D models through stable growth, thereby facilitating an accurate representation of intricate voxel-level details. Through comparative experiments with existing methods, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in evaluating voxel quality, variations, and diversity. The generated models exhibit improved accuracy in 3D evaluation metrics and visual quality, making them valuable across various fields, including virtual reality, the metaverse, and gaming.

Graph Convolutional Network for 3D Object Pose Estimation in a Point Cloud.

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are neural networks that learn the representation of nodes and associated edges that connect it to every other node while maintaining graph representation. Graph Convolutional Neural Networks (GCNs), as a representative method in GNNs, in the context of computer vision, utilize conventional Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to process data supported by graphs. This paper proposes a one-stage GCN approach for 3D object detection and poses estimation by structuring non-linearly distributed points of a graph. Our network provides the required details to analyze, generate and estimate bounding boxes by spatially structuring the input data into graphs. Our method proposes a keypoint attention mechanism that aggregates the relative features between each point to estimate the category and pose of the object to which the vertices of the graph belong, and also designs nine degrees of freedom of multi-object pose estimation. In addition, to avoid gimbal lock in 3D space, we use quaternion rotation, instead of Euler angle. Experimental results showed that memory usage and efficiency could be improved by aggregating point features from the point cloud and their neighbors in a graph structure. Overall, the system achieved comparable performance against state-of-the-art systems.

Radiation induced pemphigoid disease.

Among the possible complications of radiation therapy, acute and chronic side effects on the skin can be induced by percutaneous radiotherapy in the target site. Common skin lesions include radiation dermatitis, which can be treated by topical application of dressing and ointment. Pemphigoid disease, which displays similar clinical features as other skin diseases such as recurrent cancer and herpes zoster, rarely occurs in the site of radiotherapy; therefore, care must be taken during diagnosis for a timely treatment. The present report is a case of pemphigoid disease that had developed in a patient with endometrioid/clear cell carcinoma after radiation therapy, and the time between onset and radiotherapy was more than 6 months.

Herd-level seroprevalence of swine-influenza virus in Korea.

A total of 911 serum samples from 130 herds (an average of nine serum samples per herd) in Korea were examined for antibody to swine H1N1-influenza virus using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The list of farms was obtained from the Korean Swine Association, and herds were included from all five of the country's states. Farms were selected using a random-numbers table for swine within farms and for farms. All serum samples were collected from 22- to 24-week-old finishing pigs between September 2000 and March 2001. By ELISA, 93 out of 130 sampled herds (71.5%) were positive against swine H1N1-influenza virus. Our data suggested that seropositive herds for swine H1N1-influenza virus are distributed diffusely throughout the Republic of Korea.

Postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome of pigs in Korea: prevalence, microscopic lesions and coexisting microorganisms.

A retrospective study was performed on natural cases of postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS), recorded from January 1999 to December 2000, to determine the prevalence, microscopic lesions, and other coexisting pathogens associated with PMWS. PMWS is diagnosed based on three criteria: the presence of clinical signs (retardation of growth), characteristic microscopic lesions (granulomatous inflammation and inclusion body), and the presence of porcine circovirus (PCV)-2 within these lesions. One hundred and thirty three (8.1%) of the 1634 pigs submitted from 1243 pig farms were diagnosed for PMWS. The affected pigs were from 25 to 120 days old, the majority (78 cases, 58.6%) being 60 to 80 days old. PMWS occurred each month during the two-year study period, but the incidence peaked in May (38 cases, 28.6%), followed by April (18 cases, 13.5%) and June (13 cases, 9.8%). The most consistent and characteristic lesions were multifocal, granulomatous inflammation in lymph nodes, liver and spleen, characterized by infiltration of epithelioid macrophages and multinucleated giant cells. The majority of cases (113 cases, 85.0%) was dual infection with other pathogens. The combination of PCV-2 and Hemophilus parasuis (43 cases, 32.3%) was shown to be the most prevalent followed by PCV-2 and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (39 cases, 29.3%). The consistent presence of PCV-2, but lower prevalence of other viral and bacterial pathogens in all pigs examined with PMWS, has led to the speculation that PCV-2 is the etiological agent causing PMWS.

Antimicrobial susceptibility of pathogenic Escherichia coli isolated from pigs in Korea.

The in vitro susceptibilities of 285 isolates of Escherichia coli from preweaned and postweaned pigs with diarrhea and edema disease were tested with the 15 commonly used antimicrobial drugs by an agar dilution minimal inhibitory concentration procedure according to National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) guidelines. All E. coli isolates tested in this study belonged to enterotoxigenic E. coli, attaching and effacing E. coli, or Shiga toxin-producing E. coli. Field isolates had low MIC90 for ceftiofur (1 microg/ml). No correlation in antimicrobial resistance was found in three types of E. coli.