An Improved TransMVSNet Algorithm for Three-Dimensional Reconstruction in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Remote Sensing Domain.

It is important to achieve the 3D reconstruction of UAV remote sensing images in deep learning-based multi-view stereo (MVS) vision. The lack of obvious texture features and detailed edges in UAV remote sensing images leads to inaccurate feature point matching or depth estimation. To address this problem, this study improves the TransMVSNet algorithm in the field of 3D reconstruction by optimizing its feature extraction network and costumed body depth prediction network. The improvement is mainly achieved by extracting features with the Asymptotic Pyramidal Network (AFPN) and assigning weights to different levels of features through the ASFF module to increase the importance of key levels and also using the UNet structured network combined with an attention mechanism to predict the depth information, which also extracts the key area information. It aims to improve the performance and accuracy of the TransMVSNet algorithm's 3D reconstruction of UAV remote sensing images. In this work, we have performed comparative experiments and quantitative evaluation with other algorithms on the DTU dataset as well as on a large UAV remote sensing image dataset. After a large number of experimental studies, it is shown that our improved TransMVSNet algorithm has better performance and robustness, providing a valuable reference for research and application in the field of 3D reconstruction of UAV remote sensing images.

Single-Frame Infrared Image Non-Uniformity Correction Based on Wavelet Domain Noise Separation.

In the context of non-uniformity correction (NUC) within infrared imaging systems, current methods frequently concentrate solely on high-frequency stripe non-uniformity noise, neglecting the impact of global low-frequency non-uniformity on image quality, and are susceptible to ghosting artifacts from neighboring frames. In response to such challenges, we propose a method for the correction of non-uniformity in single-frame infrared images based on noise separation in the wavelet domain. More specifically, we commence by decomposing the noisy image into distinct frequency components through wavelet transformation. Subsequently, we employ a clustering algorithm to extract high-frequency noise from the vertical components within the wavelet domain, concurrently employing a method of surface fitting to capture low-frequency noise from the approximate components within the wavelet domain. Ultimately, the restored image is obtained by subtracting the combined noise components. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method, when applied to simulated noisy images, achieves the optimal levels among seven compared methods in terms of MSE, PSNR, and SSIM metrics. After correction on three sets of real-world test image sequences, the average non-uniformity index is reduced by 75.54%. Moreover, our method does not impose significant computational overhead in the elimination of superimposed noise, which is particularly suitable for applications necessitating stringent requirements in both image quality and processing speed.

Analysis of the Curative Effect of Temporomandibular Joint Disc Release and Fixation Combined with Chitosan Injection in the Treatment of Temporomandibular Joint Osteoarthrosis.

OBJECTIVE: Temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJ-OA) is common in clinic. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of disc release, fixation and chitosan injection in the treatment of TMJ-OA. METHODS: From March 2021 to March 2022, 32 patients who underwent the unilateral reduction and fixation of temporomandibular joint disc release were retrospectively studied. All patients were diagnosed with TMJ-OA and were treated with chitosan injection. This group of patients was analyzed by the visual analog scale (VAS) for pain and improvement of maximum comfortable mouth opening before treatment and 6 months after treatment. A paired t-test was used to evaluate the treatment effect, and p < 0.05 indicated that the difference was statistically significant. RESULTS: All 32 patients were successfully treated by surgery and chitosan injection in the second week after operation. The duration of disease in this group ranged from 1 to 10 months, with an average of 5.7 months. After 6 months of follow up, 30 patients were satisfied with the treatment and two were unsatisfied. The difference in the treatment effect was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Temporomandibular joint disc release and fixation combined with chitosan injection is effective in the treatment of TMJ-OA.

Deep Learning Based Real-Time Semantic Segmentation of Cerebral Vessels and Cranial Nerves in Microvascular Decompression Scenes.

Automatic extraction of cerebral vessels and cranial nerves has important clinical value in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia (TGN) and hemifacial spasm (HFS). However, because of the great similarity between different cerebral vessels and between different cranial nerves, it is challenging to segment cerebral vessels and cranial nerves in real time on the basis of true-color microvascular decompression (MVD) images. In this paper, we propose a lightweight, fast semantic segmentation Microvascular Decompression Network (MVDNet) for MVD scenarios which achieves a good trade-off between segmentation accuracy and speed. Specifically, we designed a Light Asymmetric Bottleneck (LAB) module in the encoder to encode context features. A Feature Fusion Module (FFM) was introduced into the decoder to effectively combine high-level semantic features and underlying spatial details. The proposed network has no pretrained model, fewer parameters, and a fast inference speed. Specifically, MVDNet achieved 76.59% mIoU on the MVD test set, has 0.72 M parameters, and has a 137 FPS speed using a single GTX 2080Ti card.

Deep Neural Network-Based Semantic Segmentation of Microvascular Decompression Images.

Image semantic segmentation has been applied more and more widely in the fields of satellite remote sensing, medical treatment, intelligent transportation, and virtual reality. However, in the medical field, the study of cerebral vessel and cranial nerve segmentation based on true-color medical images is in urgent need and has good research and development prospects. We have extended the current state-of-the-art semantic-segmentation network DeepLabv3+ and used it as the basic framework. First, the feature distillation block (FDB) was introduced into the encoder structure to refine the extracted features. In addition, the atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) module was added to the decoder structure to enhance the retention of feature and boundary information. The proposed model was trained by fine tuning and optimizing the relevant parameters. Experimental results show that the encoder structure has better performance in feature refinement processing, improving target boundary segmentation precision, and retaining more feature information. Our method has a segmentation accuracy of 75.73%, which is 3% better than DeepLabv3+.

Comparison of Autologous Platelet-Rich Plasma and Chitosan in the Treatment of Temporomandibular Joint Osteoarthritis: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this article is to study the effect of autologous platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injected into the upper cavity of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) on the treatment of TMJ osteoarthritis. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the data of 27 patients with TMJ osteoarthritis treated at the China Medical University Hospital of Stomatology from September 2018 to September 2019. Maximal interincisal opening, pain intensity, and TMJ sounds were recorded and compared before treatment and at the 3rd and 6th months after the treatment. SPSS 24.0 software was used to analyze the data of each group, and the imaging changes in the condylar bone were compared before and 6 months after the treatment. The P-value was set at .05. RESULTS: Better results were observed in the group treated with PRP on maximal interincisal opening and pain intensity than in the group receiving chitosan treatment. Regarding TMJ sounds, relief was observed in both groups, with no significant difference. CONCLUSIONS: The effect of PRP on the improvement of the maximal interincisal opening and pain intensity of patients with TMJ osteoarthritis is better than that of chitosan. However, it should be noted that the incidence of complications associated with the injection of PRP may be higher than that with injection of chitosan.

Sialendoscopy-Assisted Treatment of Stensen's Duct Injury: A Case Series.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the clinical value of sialendoscopy in the treatment of Stensen's duct injury. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 5 patients with Stensen's duct injuries who had been treated from December 2017 to April 2019 were included in the present study. The operations were performed with the help of a sialendoscope. All patients were followed for 6 months. RESULTS: The distal end of the ductal system was found precisely with the use of the sialendoscope, and the proximal end was identified by the location of the distal end. The end-to-end anastomosis was performed successfully. None of the patients complained of salivary gland fistula at the 6-month follow-up examination. CONCLUSIONS: The stumps of the ductal system could be precisely and effectively located with the help of a sialendoscope.

Effect of Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections on Pain Reduction in Patients with Temporomandibular Joint Osteoarthrosis: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

AIMS: To study the effect of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections on pain reduction in patients with temporomandibular joint osteoarthritis (TMJ OA). METHODS: The authors performed a comprehensive search of the MEDLINE, PubMed, and Web of Science databases to retrieve RCTs published up to July 2018. Pain outcomes (visual analog scale scores) were extracted to assess the effect of PRP injections on TMJ OA. All data analyses were conducted using RevMan 5.3. RESULTS: Six studies were included. According to the results of these trials, intra-articular injections of PRP were more effective than placebo for pain reduction (6 months postinjection: mean difference [MD] -2.82, 95% CI -3.39 to -2.25, P < .00001; 12 months postinjection: MD -3.29; 95% CI -4.07 to -2.52, P < .00001). Additionally, the comparison between PRP and hyaluronic acid injections showed a statistically significant difference in pain reduction in support of PRP (MD -0.81; 95% CI -1.22 to -0.40; P = .0001) at 12 months postinjection. All trials revealed a moderate risk of bias. CONCLUSION: Based on current evidence, PRP injections may reduce pain more effectively than placebo injections in TMJ OA at 6 months (level of evidence: moderate) and 12 months (level of evidence: moderate) postinjection. This significant difference in pain reduction could also be seen when PRP was compared to hyaluronic acid at 12 months postinjection (level of evidence: low). It can be cautiously interpreted that PRP has a beneficial effect on the relief of TMJ OA pain. Large-scale, low-bias RCTs are needed to test whether PRP injection should be a routine treatment for patients with TMJ OA.

Statistical Scene-Based Non-Uniformity Correction Method with Interframe Registration.

The non-uniform response in infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) detectors inevitably produces corrupted images with a fixed-pattern noise. In this paper, we present a novel and adaptive scene-based non-uniformity correction (NUC) method called Correction method with Statistical scene-based and Interframe Registration (CSIR) , which realizes low delay calculation of correction coefficient for infrared image. This method combines the statistical method and registration method to achieve a better NUC performance. Specifically, CSIR estimates the gain coefficient with statistical method to give registration method an appropriate initial value. This combination method not only reduces the need of interactive pictures, which means lower time delay, but also achieves better performance compared to the statistical method and other single registration methods. To verify this, real non-uniformity infrared image sequences collected by ourselves were used, and the advantage of CSIR was compared thoroughly on frame number (corresponding to delay time) and accuracy. The results show that the proposed method could achieve a significantly fast and reliable fixed-pattern noise reduction with the effective gain and offset.

Expression and influence of BMP-4 in human dental pulp cells cultured in vitro.

Effects of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-4 on proliferation and differentiation capacities of dental pulp cells through BMP-4 acting on human dental pulp cells cultured in vitro were investigated. Dental pulp tissues of lesion-free teeth extracted from patients due to orthodontics were taken, and human dental pulp cells were cultured in vitro using the tissue explant method. Immunocytochemical staining was used for the identification of vimentin and keratin. The dental pulp cells were divided into groups A and B. A total of 100 ng/ml BMP-4 was added into group A, while no inducer was added into group B as the control group. The cell growth curves at day 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 after culture were drawn. At day 7, the cell count, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, number of calcified nodules, and expression levels of dentin sialophosphoprotein (DSPP), dentin matrix protein-1 (DMP-1) and each gene related to dentinogenesis in each group were detected, respectively. Human dental pulp cells were conformed to the biological characteristics of dental pulp cells according to the identification of vimentin and keratin via immunocytochemical staining. With the prolongation of culture time, the number of cells in both groups was gradually increased, reaching the peak at day 5 and began to decline at day 7. The number of cells in group A was significantly greater than that in group B (p<0.05). According to the results of reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), the relative messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression levels of ALP, DSPP and DMP-1 in group A were significantly higher than those in group B (p<0.05). BMP-4 can promote the growth of dental pulp cells and remarkably enhance the differentiation of dental pulp cells into odontoblasts.

Advantages of submandibular gland preservation surgery over submandibular gland resection for proximal submandibular stones.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to compare surgical outcomes after the removal of submandibular gland (SMG) stones via 2 different surgical methods. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From June 2015 to July 2016, a total of 40 patients with SMG stones were selected from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Stomatology, China Medical University (Shenyang, China), and were randomly assigned to 2 groups. Twenty patients underwent sialendoscopy-assisted stone removal via extraoral incision with preservation of the SMG, and 20 patients underwent traditional SMG resection. The outcomes of the 2 surgical procedures were assessed. RESULTS: The operation time and hospital stay were shorter in the SMG preservation group than the SMG resection group. There were no significant differences in stone size or location between the groups. The mean visual analog scale (VAS) score was lower in the SMG preservation group than the SMG resection group. All patients in the SMG resection group exhibited varying degrees of scarring and concave deformity on the face and neck, whereas all patients in the SMG preservation group retained intact facial morphology. CONCLUSIONS: Sialendoscopy-assisted stone removal with preservation of the SMG exhibited many advantages relative to traditional SMG resection.

Evaluation of Sialendoscopy-Assisted Treatment of Submandibular Gland Stones.

PURPOSE: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the therapeutic efficiency of sialendoscopy-assisted operations in the treatment of submandibular gland stones. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data from 8 patients with sialolithiasis who underwent sialendoscopy from August 2015 to January 2016 at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Stomatology, China Medical University (Shenyang, China) were retrospectively reviewed. All the patients had undergone preoperative technetium-99m pertechnetate salivary gland scintigraphy. The results revealed that the salivary glands exhibited normal or slightly reduced uptake and excretion dysfunction. Computed tomography examinations revealed stones located in the intraductal area near the glands or in the branches that could not be removed owing to their deep locations within the mouth. Therefore, an endoscope was inserted, the stones were located intraductally using sialendoscopy, and a transcervical incision was made to remove the stones and preserve the submandibular gland. RESULTS: The stones were completely removed, and the submandibular gland was preserved in all cases. The patients recovered well postoperatively, and no complications developed. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that sialendoscopy-assisted sialolithectomy is an effective and safe surgical technique for the removal of proximal and intraglandular submandibular gland stones. The patients' quality of life had obviously improved postoperatively.

Use of Vancomycin-Impregnated Calcium Sulfate in the Treatment of Osteomyelitis of the Jaw.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe the effect of vancomycin-impregnated calcium sulfate in the treatment of osteomyelitis of the jaw. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twelve patients who were diagnosed with osteomyelitis of the jaw underwent treatment with vancomycin-impregnated calcium sulfate since July 2014 at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, School of Stomatology, China Medical University (Shenyang, China). All patients underwent debridement of nonviable bone and implantation of vancomycin-impregnated calcium sulfate. The wounds were covered with an acellular dermal matrix and sutured. RESULTS: Ten patients had satisfactory wound healing. However, 2 cases of maxillary central osteomyelitis had delayed wound healing. The wounds healed after the surgical site was resutured under local anesthesia. At 3 months, the panoramic radiograph showed that most implants had been reabsorbed and replaced by new bone formation. All patients in this study had no recurrence of infection at 6 to 18 months (mean, 10.8 months) of follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: The use of vancomycin-impregnated calcium sulfate in the surgical debridement site for chronic osteomyelitis of the jaw has shown encouraging results. In addition, calcium sulfate can promote the formation of new bone to a certain extent.

Clinical Characteristics and Treatment of Osteopetrosis Complicated by Osteomyelitis of the Mandible.

Osteopetrosis represents a heterogeneous group of rare, hereditary bone disorders with variable clinical features, and an increase in bone density. Osteomyelitis of the jaws is a significant complication of osteopetrosis. In this article, a reported patient with osteopetrosis complicated by osteomyelitis of the mandible was examined. The patient was treated with intravenous antibiotic therapy, debridement of necrotic bone and hyperbaric oxygen therapy; in addition, the authors attempted to implant the calcium sulfate and vancomycin to reconstruct the bone defect. The patient demonstrated satisfactory healing, and no recurrence of osteomyelitis was observed during the 6-month follow-up period. The treatment of osteopetrosis complicated by osteomyelitis of the mandible is difficult. The treatment of osteopetrosis complicated by osteomyelitis is controversial. The authors recommend the following sequential treatment of osteopetrosis complicated by osteomyelitis of the mandible: systemic antibiotic therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy before and after surgery; debridement of the necrotic bone; sufficient periosteal coverage and adequate soft tissue to cover the wound; implantation with calcium sulfate and vancomycin to reconstruct the bone defect as much as possible, which may be helpful in treating the disease.