Dermoscopy for the Diagnosis of Creeping Hair Caused by Ingrowing Hair: A Case Report.

Creeping hair is a rare condition characterized by creeping eruption with a black line at the advancing end, mimicking cutaneous larva migrans. The condition is also referred to as cutaneous pili migrans, migrating hair, and embedded hair. A total of 52 cases have been reported since 1957 and most cases were published in English. Herein, we report a case in which creeping hair occurred in the iliac region and review the literature from 1957 to February 2021. A 35-year-old Chinese female presented with a black moving linear eruption that had migrated from the lower abdomen to the iliac region without causing any symptoms during a 3-year period. Cutaneous examination showed a 6.5-cm-long black linear lesion beneath the skin that was revealed to be a hair shaft. After removal of the hair, the eruption diminished and no recurrence occurred in 3 months of follow-up. The creeping hair that had migrated with its lower end forward was confirmed by observation under dematoscopy and light microscopy. A review of the literature revealed that creeping hair occurs most frequently in young and middle-aged patients and the reported cases are mainly from Asia. The top locations involve the foot. The causative hair includes head hair, beard, pubic hair, body hair, and one case of dog hair. A close-up examination and dermoscopic inspection are helpful for the diagnosis of creeping hair.

Exogenous silicon enhances resistance to 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene in rice.

Environmental contamination with 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene (TCB) is a threat to rice growth, and ultimately, to human health. Silicon (Si) plays an important role in plants' stress responses. However, little is known about the effects of Si on the TCB tolerance of rice plants. We investigated the effects of Si on the morphological, physiological, and molecular characteristics of rice plants under TCB stress. First, we compared the TCB tolerance of 13 rice cultivars by measuring seven growth-related and 13 physiological indices across four treatments. Then, six cultivars with contrasting TCB tolerance were selected to study the expression of Si transport and detoxification related genes. Compared with the control, the TCB treatment resulted in decreased growth indices, chlorophyll content, and antioxidant enzyme activities, and increased the superoxide anion content and root electrical conductivity. Application of Si improved rice growth, chlorophyll content and alleviated oxidative damage caused by TCB. The alleviating effect of Si ranged from 4.1 % to 56.72 % among the cultivars, with the strongest alleviating effect on Wuyujing 36. The transcript levels of genes encoding Si transporters and detoxification enzymes were higher in tolerant cultivars than in sensitive cultivars. The TCB treatment induced the expression of GST and Lsi2 in roots and HO-1 in leaves; these genes as well as Lsi1 were differentially expressed in roots and/or leaves in the TCB + Si treatment. Lsi1 played a key role in Si-mediated TCB tolerance in Wuyujing 36. The joint analysis of gene transcript levels in TCB and TCB + Si treatments confirmed that all six genes were associated with TCB tolerance, especially Lsi1 and Lsi2 in roots and GST and CuZn-SOD in leaves. Si can increase rice plants' resistance to TCB stress by improving growth and enhancing superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and chlorophyll content, and by up-regulating genes involved in Si transport and detoxification.

SPU-Net: Self-Supervised Point Cloud Upsampling by Coarse-to-Fine Reconstruction With Self-Projection Optimization.

The task of point cloud upsampling aims to acquire dense and uniform point sets from sparse and irregular point sets. Although significant progress has been made with deep learning models, state-of-the-art methods require ground-truth dense point sets as the supervision, which makes them limited to be trained under synthetic paired training data and not suitable to be under real-scanned sparse data. However, it is expensive and tedious to obtain large numbers of paired sparse-dense point sets as supervision from real-scanned sparse data. To address this problem, we propose a self-supervised point cloud upsampling network, named SPU-Net, to capture the inherent upsampling patterns of points lying on the underlying object surface. Specifically, we propose a coarse-to-fine reconstruction framework, which contains two main components: point feature extraction and point feature expansion, respectively. In the point feature extraction, we integrate the self-attention module with the graph convolution network (GCN) to capture context information inside and among local regions simultaneously. In the point feature expansion, we introduce a hierarchically learnable folding strategy to generate upsampled point sets with learnable 2D grids. Moreover, to further optimize the noisy points in the generated point sets, we propose a novel self-projection optimization associated with uniform and reconstruction terms as a joint loss to facilitate the self-supervised point cloud upsampling. We conduct various experiments on both synthetic and real-scanned datasets, and the results demonstrate that we achieve comparable performances to state-of-the-art supervised methods.

Fine-Grained 3D Shape Classification With Hierarchical Part-View Attention.

Fine-grained 3D shape classification is important for shape understanding and analysis, which poses a challenging research problem. However, the studies on the fine-grained 3D shape classification have rarely been explored, due to the lack of fine-grained 3D shape benchmarks. To address this issue, we first introduce a new 3D shape dataset (named FG3D dataset) with fine-grained class labels, which consists of three categories including airplane, car and chair. Each category consists of several subcategories at a fine-grained level. According to our experiments under this fine-grained dataset, we find that state-of-the-art methods are significantly limited by the small variance among subcategories in the same category. To resolve this problem, we further propose a novel fine-grained 3D shape classification method named FG3D-Net to capture the fine-grained local details of 3D shapes from multiple rendered views. Specifically, we first train a Region Proposal Network (RPN) to detect the generally semantic parts inside multiple views under the benchmark of generally semantic part detection. Then, we design a hierarchical part-view attention aggregation module to learn a global shape representation by aggregating generally semantic part features, which preserves the local details of 3D shapes. The part-view attention module hierarchically leverages part-level and view-level attention to increase the discriminability of our features. The part-level attention highlights the important parts in each view while the view-level attention highlights the discriminative views among all the views of the same object. In addition, we integrate a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) to capture the spatial relationships among sequential views from different viewpoints. Our results under the fine-grained 3D shape dataset show that our method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods. The FG3D dataset is available at https://github.com/liuxinhai/FG3D-Net.

Identification of key genes associated with overwintering in Anoplophora glabripennis larva using gene co-expression network analysis.

BACKGROUND: Anoplophora glabripennis (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) is a major quarantine pest in forestry. It is widely distributed throughout many regions such as Asia, Europe, and North America, and has enormous destructive potential for forests. The larvae of A. glabripennis overwinter in a dormant state with strong cold tolerance, and whether the larvae survive winter determines the population density in the following year. However, the molecular mechanisms of this process are not clear. RESULTS: RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis of A. glabripennis larvae at five overwintering stages identified 6876 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Among these, 46 functional genes that might respond to low temperature were identified. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis revealed that the MEturquoise module was correlated with the overwintering process. The STPK, PP2A, DGAT, and HSF genes were identified as hub genes using visualization of gene network. In addition, four genes related to sugar transport, gluconeogenesis and glycosylation were screened, which may be involved in the metabolic regulation of overwintering larvae. The protein-protein interaction network indicated that ribosomal protein and ATP synthase may play an important role in connecting with other proteins. The expression levels of fifteen hub genes were further validated by quantitative RT-PCR, and the results were consistent with RNA-Seq. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates key genes that may reveal the molecular mechanism of overwintering in A. glabripennis larvae. The genes may be the potential targets to prevent larvae from surviving the cold winter by developing new biological agents using genetic engineering.

Point2SpatialCapsule: Aggregating Features and Spatial Relationships of Local Regions on Point Clouds using Spatial-aware Capsules.

Learning discriminative shape representation directly on point clouds is still challenging in 3D shape analysis and understanding. Recent studies usually involve three steps: first splitting a point cloud into some local regions, then extracting the corresponding feature of each local region, and finally aggregating all individual local region features into a global feature as shape representation using simple max-pooling. However, such pooling-based feature aggregation methods do not adequately take the spatial relationships (e.g. the relative locations to other regions) between local regions into account, which greatly limits the ability to learn discriminative shape representation. To address this issue, we propose a novel deep learning network, named Point2SpatialCapsule, for aggregating features and spatial relationships of local regions on point clouds, which aims to learn more discriminative shape representation. Compared with the traditional max-pooling based feature aggregation networks, Point2SpatialCapsule can explicitly learn not only geometric features of local regions but also the spatial relationships among them. Point2SpatialCapsule consists of two main modules. To resolve the disorder problem of local regions, the first module, named geometric feature aggregation, is designed to aggregate the local region features into the learnable cluster centers, which explicitly encodes the spatial locations from the original 3D space. The second module, named spatial relationship aggregation, is proposed for further aggregating the clustered features and the spatial relationships among them in the feature space using the spatial-aware capsules developed in this paper. Compared to the previous capsule network based methods, the feature routing on the spatial-aware capsules can learn more discriminative spatial relationships among local regions for point clouds, which establishes a direct mapping between log priors and the spatial locations through feature clusters. Experimental results demonstrate that Point2SpatialCapsule outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in the 3D shape classification, retrieval and segmentation tasks under the well-known ModelNet and ShapeNet datasets.

Sinomenine inhibits the growth of melanoma by enhancement of autophagy via PI3K/AKT/mTOR inhibition.

BACKGROUND: Melanoma is a common skin tumor in adults with high metastasis and mortality rates. Thus, finding a better effective approach to treat melanoma has become very urgent. Sinomenine (SIN), the major active compound of Sinomenium acutum, has shown antitumorigenic activities in certain cancers. However, its role in melanoma remains unclear. PURPOSE: This study aimed to explore the effects of SIN on melanoma in vitro and in vivo, in addition to exploring the underlying mechanism. METHODS: Mouse melanoma cell B16-F10 treated by SIN was analyzed by CCK8 assay and flow cytometry. Melanoma xenograft model was then established by subcutaneously injection with B16-F10 cells. Tumor growth was measured by immunohistochemistry. To further investigate the relative mechanism, the autophagy and PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway were examined by immunofluorescence and Western blot. RESULTS: Our results revealed that SIN dose dependently inhibited the proliferation of B16-F10 cells in vitro and attenuated melanoma growth in vivo. In addition, SIN treatment promoted the apoptosis of B16-F10 cells in a dose-dependent manner, as demonstrated by the increase in apoptotic cells, Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, and caspase-3 activity. Moreover, preconditioning with SIN dramatically enhanced autophagy activity by increasing Beclin-1 and LC3II/LC3I expression, in addition to decreasing p62 expression and augmenting the number of LC3 puncta, in B16-F10 cells. More importantly, autophagy inhibitor chloroquine partly abolished SIN's effects on cell growth and apoptosis. Furthermore, our results showed that SIN-triggered activation of autophagy was mediated by PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. CONCLUSION: Our study has identified a novel function of SIN and provided a molecular basis for potential applications of SIN in the treatment of melanoma and other cancers.

Development of semiochemical attractants for monitoring and controlling Chlorophorus caragana.

Chlorophorus caragana is an important wood-boring pest that infests Caragana korshinskii. The larvae bore into the stems to the point of hollowing them out, causing the whole tree to wither and even die. To control these infestations, volatile compounds were collected from C. korshinskii and used in electroantennography to ascertain which plant semiochemicals could be used to trap adult C. caragana in the field. Isophorone, cis-3-hexen-1-ol, 3-pentanone, dibutyl phthalate, and diisobutyl phthalate were the main volatile compounds produced by C. korshinskii. These compounds induced dose-dependent electrophysiological responses in the antennae of adult C. caragana to some degree. Accordingly, 58 different compound mixtures were tested in field trapping experiments over two consecutive years. Isophorone was most attractive to adult insects. In the field, the best traps were funnel-shaped ones hanging at a height of 1 m. The trapping efficiency was 63.8%. Adult beetles appear between mid June and late August, with an eclosion peak in mid July. The prototype trapping system developed could be used as a tool to monitor and control C. caragana adults.

Multi-view spectral clustering and its chemical application.

Clustering is an unsupervised method that allows researchers to group objects and gather information about their relationships. In chemoinformatics, clustering enables hypotheses to be drawn about a compound's biological, chemical and physical property in comparison to another. We introduce a novel improved spectral clustering algorithm, proposed for chemical compound clustering, using multiple data sources. Tensor-based spectral methods, used in this paper, provide chemically appropriate and statistically significant results when attempting to cluster compounds from both the GSK-Chembl Malaria data set and the Zinc database. Spectral clustering algorithms based on the tensor method give robust results on the mid-size compound sets used here. The goal of this paper is to present the clustering of chemical compounds, using a tensor-based multi-view method which proves of value to the medicinal chemistry community. Our findings show compounds of extremely different chemotypes clustering together, this is a hint to the chemogenomics nature of our method.

Optimized data fusion for kernel k-means clustering.

This paper presents a novel optimized kernel k-means algorithm (OKKC) to combine multiple data sources for clustering analysis. The algorithm uses an alternating minimization framework to optimize the cluster membership and kernel coefficients as a nonconvex problem. In the proposed algorithm, the problem to optimize the cluster membership and the problem to optimize the kernel coefficients are all based on the same Rayleigh quotient objective; therefore the proposed algorithm converges locally. OKKC has a simpler procedure and lower complexity than other algorithms proposed in the literature. Simulated and real-life data fusion applications are experimentally studied, and the results validate that the proposed algorithm has comparable performance, moreover, it is more efficient on large-scale data sets. (The Matlab implementation of OKKC algorithm is downloadable from http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~sistawww/bio/syu/okkc.html.).

Scanning electron microscopy of antennal sensible of Anoplistes halodendri halodendri and Anoplistes halodendri ephippium (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae).

Anoplistes halodendri halodendri (Pallas, 1776) and Anoplistes halodendri ephippium (Stevens and Dalman, 1817) are two subspecies of the longicorn beetle A. halodendri (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae). In the recent years, these subspecies have been spreading rapidly in Hippophae rhamnoides and Hedysarum scoparium shrubberies in the Chinese provinces of Shanxi and Kingie, causing mass mortality of these shrubberies species and consequently leading to great damage to local ecological environment construction as well as high economic, ecological, and societal losses. To control their hazards effectively, here, we study and compare the types, densities, and distribution of antennal sensilla of A. h. halodendri and A. h. ephippium using scanning electron microscopy. Eight sensilla types were observed on the antennae of these two subspecies, including placoid sensilla (Ps), chaetica sensilla (ch) (types I-III), sensilla basiconica (b) (types I and II), sensilla gemmiformium (G), and auricillica sensilla (au). Ps predominated on the antennae of both A. h. halodendri and A. h. ephippium, followed by b and ch, and G and au. There were differences between the subspecies in the distribution and density of the different sensilla types, with ch I being found exclusively on the antennae of A. h. ephippium and b I and au on the antennae of A. h. halodendri only. With the exception of Ps, the densities of ch II, ch III, b II, and G on the antennae of A. h. halodendri were much higher than on the antennae of A. h. ephippium. These results provide sufficient evidence to clarify the receptive mechanisms used by these two subspecies of longicorn beetles and their responses to volatile semiochemicals released by their host plants as well as discuss their differences with respect to host and habitat selection.

A new use of scrotal septal skin flap in repairing hypospadias.

In our study, we introduce the use of a scrotal septal skin flaps in repair of hypospadias. Between June 2006 and October 2008, 30 patients were treated by using a penile local flap to reconstruct the urethra, and a scrotal septal skin flap to cover the wound located on the ventral side of the penis. Of 30 patients, 4 presented with urine leakage, but this condition healed spontaneously after 2 to 4 weeks. Urine leakage healed without problem in the remaining patients, and they had unobstructed urinary flow. Additionally, they all were satisfied with genital appearance after the reconstruction. We conclude that our method is a convenient means to cover the wound at the ventral side of the reconstructed urethra by using a scrotal septal skin flap during hypospadias repair. This procedure provides good urinary function and satisfactory appearance to the patients. In addition, this method solves the problem of very limited local tissue for urethral reconstruction in the hypospadias patient.

Optimized data fusion for K-means Laplacian clustering.

MOTIVATION: We propose a novel algorithm to combine multiple kernels and Laplacians for clustering analysis. The new algorithm is formulated on a Rayleigh quotient objective function and is solved as a bi-level alternating minimization procedure. Using the proposed algorithm, the coefficients of kernels and Laplacians can be optimized automatically. RESULTS: Three variants of the algorithm are proposed. The performance is systematically validated on two real-life data fusion applications. The proposed Optimized Kernel Laplacian Clustering (OKLC) algorithms perform significantly better than other methods. Moreover, the coefficients of kernels and Laplacians optimized by OKLC show some correlation with the rank of performance of individual data source. Though in our evaluation the K values are predefined, in practical studies, the optimal cluster number can be consistently estimated from the eigenspectrum of the combined kernel Laplacian matrix. AVAILABILITY: The MATLAB code of algorithms implemented in this paper is downloadable from http://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~sistawww/bioi/syu/oklc.html.

Expanded retroauricular skin and fascial flap in congenital microtia reconstruction.

The aim of this article is to report the application of expanding retroauricular skin fascia flap, and autogenous costal cartilage for congenital microtia reconstruction. Microtia reconstruction was generally completed in 3 surgical stages. In the first surgical stage, a 50 or 80 mL kidney-shaped tissue expander was inserted subcutaneously in the retroauricular mastoid region. Inflation of saline volume increased up to 60 to 80 mL, and skin flap was expanded for 2 to 3 months postoperatively. In the second surgical stage, removal of tissue expander, formation of retroauricular skin flap, elevation of retroauricular fascia flap, and pedicles of both flaps in remnant ear side were performed. Costal cartilage was harvested from ipsilateral side chest to the ear for reconstruction. The 3D ear framework was sculpted with stabilization of structure, contour and erection. Simultaneously, intermediate full thickness skin graft of 4 x 8 cm was obtained from previous incision site from where costal cartilage was harvested. Cartilage ear framework was anchored between skin flap and fascia flap, and fixed it symmetrically to the opposite normal ear, inferior portion of the ear framework was wrapped by remnant ear lobule, expanded skin flap covered the anterior portion of the framework, fascial flap was draped to the posterior side of framework and helical rim, then fascial flap was surfaced by intermediate full thickness skin graft. Suction drain was inserted and coated between skin flap and framework, drain was removed fifth postoperative day. Tragus construction and conchal excavation with skin graft was performed in the third stage of microtia reconstruction. Between October 2000 and October 2007, 426 cases were diagnosed as unilateral microtia patients and 22 cases were bilateral microtia patients. Therefore, 448 microtia ears were treated with tissue expander and autogenous costal cartilage. In 262 cases, structure of the helix, tragus, conchal excavation, auriculocepahalic angle, and symmetry to opposite normal ear were satisfied in the follow-up period of 6 months to 4 years. Antihelix, triangular fossa, and scapha were prominent with good result in most of the patients. Expanded retroauricular skin flap combined with fascial flap can cover the different size and height of cartilage ear framework in single surgical stage. At the same time, on the basis of structure stability and contour reality of cartilage framework, we can achieve fine structure and erect stability of constructed auricle. This method affords ideal results in microtia reconstruction.

Bilateral microtia reconstruction.

BACKGROUND: Ear reconstruction for congenital microtia is a challenge for the plastic and reconstructive surgeon. Ten percent of microtia cases are bilateral. However, the published literature contains relatively little information about auricular reconstruction in bilateral microtia. Some authorities prefer to reconstruct each side at different stages. In this article, we introduce an operative method to reconstruct both sides simultaneously. This is completely feasible, and saves time and cost. Furthermore, this method allows comparison between sides during surgery, and facilitates carving of bilateral ear frameworks of equal size and shape. METHODS: From March 2007 to June 2008, 21 cases of congenital bilateral microtia were treated by post-auricular skin flap expansion, autogenous rib cartilage framework implantation, post-auricular fascial flap lifting, followed by split-thickness free skin grafting to reconstruct bilateral external ears during the same stage. RESULTS: With a follow-up duration of 6 months to 1 year, two cases in a total of 21 showed different levels of absorption and cartilage deformation. The rest (19 cases) of the bilateral reconstructed ears showed good symmetry in size, shape and location. The bilateral reconstructed ears looked symmetrical and similar in outline, with well-defined structures. CONCLUSION: Simultaneous bilateral congenital microtia reconstruction is feasible and effective. The authors recommend it as the treatment of choice for bilateral microtia reconstruction.

[New concept of the treatment for redundant prepuce].

OBJECTIVE: Literatures on the development and function of prepuce was reviewed. To compare the merit and demerit of treatment for redundant prepuce by conventional circumcision or by removing the root skin of the penis. To investigate the ideal method and time of treatment for redundant prepuce. METHODS: The extended length of the penis and the extended skin of penis were carefully measured and the excess skin at the root of the penis was removed from the surface of Colle's fascia. Then the remaining distal skin was drew back to suture to the root of the penis. As for the cases complicated with stenosis of prepuce, longitudinal incision was performed along the constricted area to release stenosis, followed by transverse closure of the wound. RESULTS: 110 adult cases of simple redundant prepuce and 40 cases complicated with stenosis were treated by this way. Functional and cosmetic results were achieved without any complications in all cases. All patients were satisfied with the result. CONCLUSIONS: Removal of the excess skin at the root of the penis should be preferred to the conventional circumcision for treatment of redundant prepuce. The ideal time for intervention is at or after adolescence, when the prepuce has developed maturely. Non-operative methods should be taken to treat phimosis and adherent prepuce before adolescence.

[FTIR spectroscopic studies of hydration effect on the molecular structure of polyether urethane].

The interaction between water molecules and the polar groups in linear polyether urethane was studied by FTIR and subtraction spectroscopy technique. Direct proofs of the combining of water molecule and carbonyl group were obtained. The reorganizations of the ether linkage, carbamate, and carbon-hydrogen chain after hydration were also observed. These results suggest that the FTIR and subtraction spectroscopy technique could be a useful tool to investigate the hydration mechanism of polymer materials.

[Structural study on the transparency of cross-linked polyester polyurethane].

The polyurethane material with cross-linked structure was synthesized using half pre-polymerization method. IR, UV-Vis, TEM and XRD methods, and physical properties measurements indicate that different moulding temperatures influence the apparent transparence of polyurethane and abrasive performance, and the nature of these changes is related to the conditions of processand chemical reaction which lead to gradual micro-phase separation of the polyurethane molecules with different compositions, resulting in the domain-forming with the size of sub-micro-, micro- and even more than ten micro-meters. Such domains aggregate one another to form particles with different shapes and complicated structures. The increase in the amount and size of these heterogeneous particles, distributed in the medium of transparent polyurethane, is the main cause that brings on an opaque appearance of polyurethane.

[The studies on YCl3/PEU system by rheology analysis and FTIR].

FTIR spectroscopy and rheology analysis were applied to study the YCl3/PEU system. It is apparent that modification with lanthanide complexes such as yttrium leads to a slight increase in viscosity of the polyether urethane solution. The authors conclude that this may be due to the interaction between the lanthanide ions and the polar group in urethane.A new band appears at 1650 cm(-1) in the infrared spectra of the YCl3/PEU system, which corresponds to the new carbonyl structure formed through the coordination with yttrium cations. The dynamic rheological behaviors of the solutions demonstrate the interaction furthermore. A higher molecular weight formed with the higher concentration of the lanthanide ions in this DMF solution. And this could be an effective method to characterize the structure of the polymer solutions.