Retraction: Experimental and theoretical studies of the nanostructured {Fe3O4@SiO2@(CH2)3Im}C(CN)3 catalyst for 2-amino-3-cyanopyridine preparation via an anomeric based oxidation.

[This retracts the article DOI: 10.1039/C6RA12299J.].

MCTS with Refinement for Proposals Selection Games in Scene Understanding.

We propose a novel method applicable in many scene understanding problems that adapts the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) algorithm, originally designed to learn to play games of high-state complexity. From a generated pool of proposals, our method jointly selects and optimizes proposals that minimize the objective term. In our first application for floor plan reconstruction from point clouds, our method selects and refines the room proposals, modelled as 2D polygons, by optimizing on an objective function combining the fitness as predicted by a deep network and regularizing terms on the room shapes. We also introduce a novel differentiable method for rendering the polygonal shapes of these proposals. Our evaluations on the recent and challenging Structured3D and Floor-SP datasets show significant improvements over the state-of-the-art both in speed and quality of reconstructions, without imposing hard constraints nor assumptions on the floor plan configurations. In our second application, we extend our approach to reconstruct general 3D room layouts from a color image and obtain accurate room layouts. We also show that our differentiable renderer can easily be extended for rendering 3D planar polygons and polygon embeddings. Our method shows high performance on the Matterport3D-Layout dataset, without introducing hard constraints on room layout configurations.

Monitoring weekly progress of front crawl swimmers using IMU-based performance evaluation goal metrics.

Technical evaluation of swimming performance is an essential factor in preparing elite swimmers for their competitions. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) have attracted much attention recently because they can provide coaches with a detailed analysis of swimmers' performance during training. A coach can obtain a quantitative and objective evaluation from IMU. The purpose of this study was to validate the use of a new phase-based performance assessment with a single IMU worn on the sacrum during training sessions. Sixteen competitive swimmers performed five one-way front crawl trials at their maximum speed wearing an IMU on the sacrum. The coach recorded the lap time for each trial, as it remains the gold standard for swimmer's performance in competition. The measurement was carried out once a week for 10 consecutive weeks to monitor the improvement in the swimmers' performance. Meaningful progress was defined as a time decrease of at least 0.5 s over a 25 m lap. Using validated algorithms, we estimated five goal metrics from the IMU signals representing the swimmer's performance in the swimming phases (wall push-off, glide, stroke preparation, free-swimming) and in the entire lap. The results showed that the goal metrics for free-swimming phase and the entire lap predicted the swimmer's progress well (e.g., accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and specificity of 0.91, 0.89, 0.94, and 0.95 for the lap goal metric, respectively). As the goal metrics for initial phases (wall push-off, glide, stroke preparation) achieved high precision and specificity (≥0.79) in progress detection, the coach can use them for swimmers with satisfactory free-swimming phase performance and make further improvements in initial phases. Changes in the values of the goal metrics have been shown to be correlated with changes in lap time when there is meaningful progress. The results of this study show that goal metrics provided by the phase-based performance evaluation with a single IMU can help monitoring swimming progress. Average velocity of the lap can replace traditional lap time measurement, while phase-based goal metrics provide more information about the swimmer's performance in each phase. This evaluation can help the coach quantitatively monitor the swimmer's performance and train them more efficiently.

SmartSwim, a Novel IMU-Based Coaching Assistance.

Swimming coaches provide regular timed and technical feedback to swimmers and guide them efficiently in training sessions. Due to the complexity of swimmers' performance, which is not visible in qualitative observation, quantitative and objective performance evaluation can better assist the coach in this regard. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) are used in swimming for objective performance evaluation. In this study, we propose a new performance evaluation feedback (SmartSwim) using IMU and investigate its effects on the swimmer's weekly progress. Measurements were conducted each week with 15 competitive swimmers for 10 weeks using a Sacrum IMU. The SmartSwim report included a comprehensive representation of performance based on goal metrics of each phase extracted from the IMU signals. The swimmers were divided into two groups: the experimental and control groups. The SmartSwim report for each swimmer in the experimental group was given to the coach, who used it to adjust the training accordingly. The results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group when comparing each swimmer, each session and the whole sessions. At the level of each individual, more members of the experimental group showed significant downward trend of average lap time (Mann-Kendall trend test, 95% confidence level). While comparing the sessions, the experimental group showed significantly lower lap time than the control group from the sixth session onwards (p-value < 0.05 from t-test). Considering all sessions, the experimental group showed significantly higher progress, lower average lap time, and more consistent records (Mann-Whitney U test at 95% confidence level) than the control group. This study demonstrated that SmartSwim can assist coaching by quantitatively assessing swimmers' performance, leading to more efficient training.

Clinicopathological utility of miR-203a-3p in diagnosing colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND: Biomarkers, such as microRNAs, are helpful in diagnosing colorectal cancer, regulating disease progression, predicting disease recurrence, and determining therapy success. This research aimed to look at the clinicopathological characteristics of serum miRNA-203a-3p expression in colorectal cancer patients. METHODS AND RESULTS: This case-control study was conducted on 43 patients with colorectal cancer and 43 healthy individuals. After RNA extraction, cDNA was synthesized. The expression of miR-203a-3p was measured using RT-qPCR. Demographic and histochemical data were extracted from patient documents. SPSS and GraphPad Prism software were used to analyze the data. The expression of miR-203a-3p in CRC patients was 2.39 times lower than in the control group (p < 0.0001). The miR-203a-3p expression was significantly lower in the CRC tumor stages, tumor grades, and lymph node metastasis compared to the control group (p < 0.0001 each). The ROC curves showed that the AUC was 0.73, and the best cut-point based on the Youden index was 0.3954, 0.7105, 0.5087, and 0.4868 for detecting colorectal cancer (p = 0.0002), tumor grade (p = 0.006), tumor stage (p = 0.001), and lymph node metastasis (p = 0.0011) compared to the control group, respectively. The binary logistic regression analysis was performed on the correlation between BMI, smoking, and cancer inheritance with miR-203a-3p in cancer and control groups. CONCLUSION: This study's findings revealed that serum miR-203a-3p is a fair non-invasive molecular biomarker for diagnosing and progressing tumor grade, tumor stage, and lymph node metastasis in colorectal cancer. However, further research with higher statistical numbers is needed to strengthen the correlation and be used for diagnostic applications.

Swimming Phase-Based Performance Evaluation Using a Single IMU in Main Swimming Techniques.

Comprehensive monitoring of performance is essential for swimmers and swimming coaches to optimize the training. Regardless of the swimming technique, the swimmer passes various swimming phases from wall to wall, including a dive into the water or wall push-off, then glide and strokes preparation and finally, swimming up to the turn. The coach focuses on improving the performance of the swimmer in each of these phases. The purpose of this study was to assess the potential of using a sacrum-worn inertial measurement unit (IMU) for performance evaluation in each swimming phase (wall push-off, glide, stroke preparation and swimming) of elite swimmers in four main swimming techniques (i.e. front crawl, breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke). Nineteen swimmers were asked to wear a sacrum IMU and swim four one-way 25 m trials in each technique, attached to a tethered speedometer and filmed by cameras in the whole lap as reference systems. Based on the literature, several goal metrics were extracted from the instantaneous velocity (e.g. average velocity per stroke cycle) and displacement (e.g. time to reach 15 m from the wall) data from a tethered speedometer for the swimming phases, each one representing the goodness of swimmer's performance. Following a novel approach, that starts from swimming bout detection and continues until detecting the swimming phases, the IMU kinematic variables in each swimming phase were extracted. The highly associated variables with the corresponding goal metrics were detected by LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) variable selection and used for estimating the goal metrics with a linear regression model. The selected kinematic variables were relevant to the motion characteristics of each phase (e.g. selection of propulsion-related variables in wall push-off phase), providing more interpretability to the model. The estimation reached a determination coefficient (R2) value more than 0.75 and a relative RMSE less than 10% for most goal metrics in all swimming techniques. The results show that a single sacrum IMU can provide a wide range of performance-related swimming kinematic variables, useful for performance evaluation in four main swimming techniques.

Clinical Evaluation of the Diagnostic Role of MicroRNA-155 in Breast Cancer.

AIM: Biochemical markers, including microRNAs (miRs), may facilitate the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer. This study was aimed at assessing serum miR-155 expression in patients with breast cancer and receptors. METHODS: This case-control study was conducted on 36 patients with breast cancer and 36 healthy individuals. After RNA extraction from the patient's serum, cDNA was synthesized. The expression of miR-155 was measured using RT-qPCR. Demographic and histochemical data were extracted from patient documents. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. RESULTS: The mean age of subjects in breast cancer and control groups was 47.64 ± 8.19 and 47.36 ± 7.52 years, respectively. The serum miR-155 expression was higher in the cancer group (1.68 ± 0.66) compared to the control group (p < 0.0001). There was a significant relationship between serum miR-155 expression and the tumor grade (p < 0.001), tumor stage (p < 0.001), and tumor size (p < 0.001) of the patients. However, no relationship between miR-155 expression and the presence of lymph node involvement (p = 0.15), HER2 (p = 0.79), Ki-67 (p = 0.9), progesterone receptor (p = 0.54), and estrogen receptors (p = 0.84) was found. The ROC curve analysis showed that the AUC was 0.89 (77.78% sensitivity and 88.89% specificity), and the cutoff was 1.4 (Youden index: 0.6667) for detecting breast cancer. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study revealed that serum miR-155 may serve as a potential noninvasive molecular biomarker for breast cancer diagnosis and can help predict the grade of the disease.

Evaluation of the Diagnostic Properties of Serum hsa-miR-223-5p in the Detection of Gastric Cancer: A Case-Control Study.

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRs) are a group of small non-coding and single-stranded RNAs of 18 to 25 nucleotides. The study of microRNAs is one of the new ways to detect cancer. In this study, the serum expression of miR-223 in patients with GC was measured and compared with the control group. METHODS: This case-control study was conducted on 39 patients with GC and 39 control subjects who visited the Reza Radiotherapy and Oncology Center, Mashhad, Iran, due to gastrointestinal complaints. The demographic information was collected, and the serum levels of miR-223 were measured using the real-time PCR technique in all study subjects. The association between the GC of miR-223 and tumor staging and cancer progression was assessed. RESULTS: The miR-223 expression in GC patients was 3.10-fold higher than that of the control group (p<0.0001). The miR-223 expression was significantly higher in the GC stages and grades compared to the control group (p<0.0001 each). However, there was no significant effect for age, smoking, and gender on miR- 223 expression in GC and controls. At the optimal cutoff value of 0.7436, the maximal sensitivity of 89.74% and specificity of 84.62% were achieved for miR-223 (p<0.001). The sensitivity and specificity for miR-223 for differentiating low grades from high grade were 92.31% and 73.08% (p=0.0003), and for differentiating low stages from the high stage was 81.82% and 39.29% respectively (p=0.696). CONCLUSION: This study revealed that miR-223 could be considered as a non-invasive diagnostic marker in the early diagnosis of GC.

A Novel Macro-Micro Approach for Swimming Analysis in Main Swimming Techniques Using IMU Sensors.

Inertial measurement units (IMU) are proven as efficient tools for swimming analysis by overcoming the limits of video-based systems application in aquatic environments. However, coaches still believe in the lack of a reliable and easy-to-use analysis system for swimming. To provide a broad view of swimmers' performance, this paper describes a new macro-micro analysis approach, comprehensive enough to cover a full training session, regardless of the swimming technique. Seventeen national level swimmers (5 females, 12 males, 19.6 ± 2.1 yrs) were equipped with six IMUs and asked to swim 4 × 50 m trials in each swimming technique (i.e., frontcrawl, breaststroke, butterfly, and backstroke) in a 25 m pool, in front of five 2-D cameras (four under water and one over water) for validation. The proposed approach detects swimming bouts, laps, and swimming technique in macro level and swimming phases in micro level on all sensor locations for comparison. Swimming phases are the phases swimmers pass from wall to wall (wall push-off, glide, strokes preparation, swimming, and turn) and micro analysis detects the beginning of each phase. For macro analysis, an overall accuracy range of 0.83-0.98, 0.80-1.00, and 0.83-0.99 were achieved, respectively, for swimming bouts detection, laps detection and swimming technique identification on selected sensor locations, the highest being achieved with sacrum. For micro analysis, we obtained the lowest error mean and standard deviation on sacrum for the beginning of wall-push off, glide and turn (-20 ± 89 ms, 4 ± 100 ms, 23 ± 97 ms, respectively), on shank for the beginning of strokes preparation (0 ± 88 ms) and on wrist for the beginning of swimming (-42 ± 72 ms). Comparing the swimming techniques, sacrum sensor achieves the smallest range of error mean and standard deviation during micro analysis. By using the same macro-micro approach across different swimming techniques, this study shows its efficiency to detect the main events and phases of a training session. Moreover, comparing the results of both macro and micro analyses, sacrum has achieved relatively higher amounts of accuracy and lower mean and standard deviation of error in all swimming techniques.

Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) in cancer therapy: a nano-based approach.

Cancer is one of the most complex diseases that has resulted in multiple genetic disorders and cellular abnormalities. Globally, cancer is the most common health concern disease that is affecting human beings. Great efforts have been made over the past decades in biology with the aim of searching novel and more efficient tools in therapy. Thus, small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) have been considered one of the most noteworthy developments which are able to regulate gene expression following a process known as RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi is a post-transcriptional mechanism that involves the inhibition of gene expression through promoting cleavage on a specific area of a target messenger RNA (mRNA). This technology has shown promising therapeutic results for a good number of diseases, especially in cancer. However, siRNA therapeutics have to face important drawbacks in therapy including stability and successful siRNA delivery in vivo. In this regard, the development of effective siRNA delivery systems has helped addressing these issues by opening novel therapeutic windows which have allowed to build up important advances in Nanomedicine. In this review, we discuss the progress of siRNA therapy as well as its medical application via nanoparticle-mediated delivery for cancer treatment.

Robust 3D Object Tracking from Monocular Images Using Stable Parts.

We present an algorithm for estimating the pose of a rigid object in real-time under challenging conditions. Our method effectively handles poorly textured objects in cluttered, changing environments, even when their appearance is corrupted by large occlusions, and it relies on grayscale images to handle metallic environments on which depth cameras would fail. As a result, our method is suitable for practical Augmented Reality applications including industrial environments. At the core of our approach is a novel representation for the 3D pose of object parts: We predict the 3D pose of each part in the form of the 2D projections of a few control points. The advantages of this representation is three-fold: We can predict the 3D pose of the object even when only one part is visible; when several parts are visible, we can easily combine them to compute a better pose of the object; the 3D pose we obtain is usually very accurate, even when only few parts are visible. We show how to use this representation in a robust 3D tracking framework. In addition to extensive comparisons with the state-of-the-art, we demonstrate our method on a practical Augmented Reality application for maintenance assistance in the ATLAS particle detector at CERN.