Development and Validation of an Automatic Ultrawide-Field Fundus Imaging Enhancement System for Facilitating Clinical Diagnosis:A Cross-Sectional Multicenter Study

In ophthalmology,the quality of fundus images is critical for accurate diagnosis,both in clinical practice and in artificial intelligence(AI)-assisted diagnostics.Despite the broad view provided by ultrawide-field(UWF)imaging,pseudocolor images may conceal critical lesions necessary for precise diagnosis.To address this,we introduce UWF-Net,a sophisticated image enhancement algorithm that takes disease characteristics into consideration.Using the Fudan University ultra-wide-field image(FDUWI)dataset,which includes 11294 Optos pseudocolor and 2415 Zeiss true-color UWF images,each of which is rigorously annotated,UWF-Net combines global style modeling with feature-level lesion enhancement.Pathological consistency loss is also applied to maintain fundus feature integrity,significantly improving image quality.Quantitative and qualitative evaluations demonstrated that UWF-Net outperforms existing methods such as contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization(CLAHE)and structure and illumination constrained generative adversarial network(StillGAN),delivering superior retinal image quality,higher quality scores,and preserved feature details after enhancement.In disease classification tasks,images enhanced by UWF-Net showed notable improvements when processed with existing classification systems over those enhanced by StillGAN,demonstrating a 4.62%increase in sensitivity(SEN)and a 3.97%increase in accuracy(ACC).In a multicenter clinical setting,UWF-Net-enhanced images were preferred by ophthalmologic technicians and doctors,and yielded a significant reduction in diagnostic time((13.17±8.40)s for UWF-Net enhanced images vs(19.54±12.40)s for original images)and an increase in diagnostic accuracy(87.71%for UWF-Net enhanced images vs 80.40%for original images).Our research verifies that UWF-Net markedly improves the quality of UWF imaging,facilitating better clinical outcomes and more reliable AI-assisted disease classification.The clinical integration of UWF-Net holds great promise for enhancing diagnostic processes and patient care in ophthalmology.

Electrochemical Metalloimmunoassay Based on Enlargement of Gold Nanoparticle Label Treated with Ag Enhancement System

A novel sensitive electrochemical immunoassay with colloidal gold as the antibody labeling tag and subsequent signal amplification by silver enhancement is described. Colloidal gold was treated by a light-sensitive silver enhancement system which made silver deposit on the surface of colloidal gold(form Au/Ag core-shell structure), followed by the release of the metallic silver atoms anchored on the antibody by oxidative dissolution of them in an acidic solution and the indirect determination of the dissolved Ag + ions by anodic stripping voltammetry(ASV) at a carbon fiber microelectrode. The electrochemical signal is directly proportional to the amount of analyte(goat IgG) in the standard or a sample. The method was evaluated by means of a noncompetitive heterogeneous immunoassay of immunoglobulin G(IgG) with a concentration as low as 0.2 ng/mL. The high performance of the method is related to the sensitive ASV determination of silver(Ⅰ) at a carbon fiber microelectrode and to the release of a large number of Ag + ions from each silver shell anchored on the analyte(goat IgG).

Adversarial Examples Protect Your Privacy on Speech Enhancement System

Speech is easily leaked imperceptibly.When people use their phones,the personal voice assistant is constantly listening and waiting to be activated.Private content in speech may be maliciously extracted through automatic speech recognition(ASR)technology by some applications on phone devices.To guarantee that the recognized speech content is accurate,speech enhancement technology is used to denoise the input speech.Speech enhancement technology has developed rapidly along with deep neural networks(DNNs),but adversarial examples can cause DNNs to fail.Considering that the vulnerability of DNN can be used to protect the privacy in speech.In this work,we propose an adversarial method to degrade speech enhancement systems,which can prevent the malicious extraction of private information in speech.Experimental results show that the generated enhanced adversarial examples can be removed most content of the target speech or replaced with target speech content by speech enhancement.The word error rate(WER)between the enhanced original example and enhanced adversarial example recognition result can reach 89.0%.WER of target attack between enhanced adversarial example and target example is low at 33.75%.The adversarial perturbation in the adversarial example can bring much more change than itself.The rate of difference between two enhanced examples and adversarial perturbation can reach more than 1.4430.Meanwhile,the transferability between different speech enhancement models is also investigated.The low transferability of the method can be used to ensure the content in the adversarial example is not damaged,the useful information can be extracted by the friendly ASR.This work can prevent the malicious extraction of speech.

Improving nursing care protocols for diabetic patients through a systematic review and meta-analysis of recent years

BACKGROUND Diabetes mellitus has become one of the major pandemics of the 21st century.In this scenario,nursing interventions are essential for improving self-care and quality of life in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.Nursing interventions are crucial for managing the disease and preventing complications.AIM To analyse nursing interventions in recent years through a systematic review and meta-analysis and to propose improvements in care plans.METHODS This study conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the impact of nursing interventions on quantitative glycaemic variables,such as glycated haemoglobin and fasting plasma glucose.RESULTS After confirming that the combined effect of all studies from the past 5 years positively impacts quantitative variables,a descriptive analysis of the studies with the most significant changes was conducted.Based on this,an improvement in diabetic patient care protocols has been proposed through follow-up plans tailored to the patient’s technological skills.CONCLUSION The combined results obtained and the proposal for improvement developed in this manuscript could help to improve the quality of life of many people around the world.

A system for evaluation of ultrasound contrast agent's enhancement effect

A system for in vitro investigation of ultrasound contrast agent＇s enhancement effect is presented and evaluated. It includes the digital B-mode ultrasound scanner Belson3000A, the tissue-mimicking ultrasound phantoms and the software which is used for image quantitative analysis. The linear range, optimal settings and repeatability of the system are assessed and explored by scanning the ultrasound phantoms with different reflective intensities. The measurements are performed under an acoustic power from 4.8 to 12.3 mW, the scanner centre frequency is 3.5 MH and the gain setting is 50 dB. Both a self-made surfactant encapsulated microbubble and a commercial ultrasound contrast agent are scanned. The results show that the pixel intensity of ultrasonic images increases with the increase in the sound power, and for the stronger reflective phantoms of more particles, the increasing trend is much more evident. The system is optimal for evaluating the microbubble contrast agents＇ enhancement effects. It presents a simple, effective and real-time means for characterizing the enhancement ability of microbubbles.

Artificial Precipitation Enhancement Weather System and the Operation Timing in Shenyang Area

By using the mathematical statistics and classification,the artificial precipitation enhancement cases in Shenyang area were analyzed.The results showed that the precipitation enhancement weather systems mainly included the northeast cold vortex,high-altitude trough,North China low-pressure,high-pressure rear and cold front cloud system.The appropriate height of precipitation enhancement was about 3 000-6 000 m in the middle and upper part of the cloud layer.The timing of precipitation enhancement should be in the radar's monitoring.The systems moved slowly or maintained stably in the developing or mature stages.The aircraft rainfall enhancement should be used in the stable and deep cloud layers.The rocket and antiaircraft gun rainfall enhancement should be used in the unstable move.

Time synchronization in communication networks based on the Beidou foundation enhancement system

Communication networks rely on time synchronization information generated by base station equipment(either the Global Navigation Satellite System receiver or rubidium atomic clock) to enable wireless networking and communications. Meanwhile, the time synchronization among base stations depends on the Network Time Protocol. With the development of mobile communication systems, the corresponding time synchronization accuracy has increased as well. In this case, the use of sparsely distributed-high-precision synchronization points to synchronize time for an entire network with high precision is a key problem and is the foundation of the enhanced network communication. The current receiver equipment for China's digital synchronous network typically includes dedicated multi-channel GPS receivers for communication; however, with the development of GPS by the USA, network security has been destabilized and reliability is low. Nonetheless, network time synchronization based on Beidou satellite navigation system timing devices is an inevitable development trend for China's digital communications network with the establishment of the independently developed BDS, especially the implementation and improvement of the Beidou foundation enhancement system.

Design and fabrication of a new fluorescence enhancement system of silver nanoparticles-decorated aligned silver nanowires

A new substrate,aligned Ag nanowires decorated with silver nanoparticle composite structure(AgNWs@AgNPs),was fabricated to investigate metalenhanced fluorescence(MEF) and its mechanism.The new composite structure was fabricated via a three-phase interface assembly method followed by SnCl2 sensitization and AgNO3 reduction process.The size and distribution of the nanoparticles on silver nanowires increased with the sensitization and reduction cycles.The formation of AgNPs on the surfaces of AgNWs was confirmed by multiple characterization methods including scanning electron microscopy(SEM),transmission electron microscope(TEM),atomic force microscopy(AFM) and X-ray diffraction(XRD).The results show that the fluorescence intensity of the poly(3-hexylthiophene)(P3HT) on the composite structure was greatly enhanced compared with that on bare glass substrate,and the intensity increased with the increase in particle sizes and density.The mechanism was basedo n the increase in excitation rate and the radiation decay rate.The new type of substrate could serve as a good and efficient MEF substrate for high-performance fluorescence-based devices.

Consistency check of degradation mechanism between natural storage and enhancement test for missile servo system

Reliability enhancement testing(RET) is an accelerated testing which hastens the performance degradation process to surface its inherent defects of design and manufacture. It is an important hypothesis that the degradation mechanism of the RET is the same as the one of the normal stress condition. In order to check the consistency of two mechanisms, we conduct two enhancement tests with a missile servo system as an object of the study, and preprocess two sets of test data to establish the accelerated degradation models regarding the temperature change rate that is assumed to be the main applied stress of the servo system during the natural storage. Based on the accelerated degradation models and natural storage profile of the servo system, we provide and demonstrate a procedure to check the consistency of two mechanisms by checking the correlation and difference of two sets of degradation data. The results indicate that the two degradation mechanisms are significantly consistent with each other.

Temperature stability of magnetoresistance (MR) and MR enhancement in La_(1-x)(Sr_(1-y)Ag_y)_x MnO_3 system

Polycrystalline samples of Lal-x（Srl-yAgy）x MnO3 （y = 0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 1.0） were prepared by the solid-state reaction method. The temperature stability of magnetoresistance and magnetoresistance enhancement in Lal_x（Srl_yAgy）~MnO3 system with both univalent and bivalent elements doped at A site and with unchanged value of Mn~＋/Mn4＋ ratio were explored through the measurements of X-ray diffraction patterns, magnetiza- tion-temperature （M-T） curves, resistivity-temperature （p-T） curves and magnetoresistance-temperature （MR-T） curves. The results are as follows： there are two peaks in the p-T curves of the samples with Ag doping, one is caused by resistance change during the paramagnetism- ferromagnetism transition, and the other is from boundary- dependent scattering of conduction electrons on the boundaries of grains. The peak value of MR increases with increasing Ag doping content, and it increases from 8.2 % for y ---- 0.2 to 29.6 % for y ---- 1.0 under the magnetic field of B = 0.8 T; MR remains a constant of 12 % in the temperature range of 218-168 K for the sample with y = 1.0, and the temperature stability of MR is in favor of the practical application of MR.

A Security Enhancement Model Based on Switching Edge Strategy in Interdependent Heterogeneous Cyber-Physical Systems

With the advent of cross-domain interconnection,large-scale sensor network systems such as smart grids,smart homes,and intelligent transportation have emerged.These complex network systems often have a CPS(Cyber-Physical System)architecture and are usually composed of multiple interdependent systems.Minimal faults between interdependent networks may cause serious cascading failures between the entire system.Therefore,in this paper,we will explore the robustness detection schemes for interdependent networks.Firstly,by calculating the largest giant connected component in the entire system,the security of interdependent network systems under different attack models is analyzed.Secondly,a comparative analysis of the cascade failure mechanism between interdependent networks under the edge enhancement strategy is carried out.Finally,the simulation results verify the impact of system reliability under different handover edge strategies and show how to choose a better handover strategy to enhance its robustness.The further research work in this paper can also help design how to reduce the interdependence between systems,thereby further optimizing the interdependent network system’s structure to provide practical support for reducing the cascading failures.In the later work,we hope to explore our proposed strategies in the network model of real-world or close to real networks.

Adaptive Signal Enhancement Unit for EEG Analysis in Remote Patient Care Monitoring Systems

In this paper we propose an efcient process of physiological artifact elimination methodology from brain waves(BW),which are also commonly known as electroencephalogram(EEG)signal.In a clinical environment during the acquisition of BW several artifacts contaminates the actual BW component.This leads to inaccurate and ambiguous diagnosis.As the statistical nature of the EEG signal is more non-stationery,adaptive ltering is the more promising method for the process of artifact elimination.In clinical conditions,the conventional adaptive techniques require many numbers of computational operations and leads to data samples overlapping and instability of the algorithm used.This causes delay in diagnosis and decision making.To overcome this problem in our work we propose to set a threshold value to diminish the problem of round off error.The resultant adaptive algorithm based on this strategy is Non-linear Least mean square(NL2MS)algorithm.Again,to improve this algorithm in terms of ltering capability we perform data normalization,using this algorithm several hybrid versions are developed to improve ltering and reduce computational operations.Using the method,a new signal enhancement unit(SEU)is realized and performance of various hybrid versions of algorithms examined using real EEG signals recorded from the subject.The ability of the proposed schemes is measured in terms of convergence,enhancement and multiplications required.Among various SEUs,the MCN2L 2MS algorithm achieves 14.6734,12.8732,10.9257,15.7790 dB during the artifact removal of RA,EMG,CSA and EBA components with only two multiplications.Hence,this algorithm seems to be better candidate for artifact elimination.

High-Stability High-Energy Picosecond Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplifier as a Preamplifier in Nd：Glass Petawatt System for Contrast Enhancement

We demonstrate a novel picosecond optical parametric preamplification to generate high-stability, high-energy and high-contrast seed pulses. The 5ps seed pulse is amplified from 60pJ to 300μJ with an 8.6ps/ 3mJ pump laser in a signal stage of short pulse non-collinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification. The total gain is more than 106 and the rms energy stability is under 1.35%. The contrast ratio is higher than 10s within a scale of 20ps before the main pulse. Consequently, the improvement factor of the signal contrast is approximately equal to the gain 106 outside the pump window.

A numerical study on heat transfer enhancement and design of a heat exchanger with porous media in continuous hydrothermal flow synthesis system

The aim of this study is to use a new configuration of porous media in a heat exchanger in continuous hydrothermal flow synthesis(CHFS)system to enhance the heat transfer and minimize the required length of the heat exchanger.For this purpose,numerous numerical simulations are performed to investigate performance of the system with porous media.First,the numerical simulation for the heat exchanger in CHFS system is validated by experimental data.Then,porous media is added to the system and six different thicknesses for the porous media are examined to obtain the optimum thickness,based on the minimum required length of the heat exchanger.Finally,by changing the flow rate and inlet temperature of the product as well as the cooling water flow rate,the minimum required length of the heat exchanger with porous media for various inlet conditions is assessed.The investigations indicate that using porous media with the proper thickness in the heat exchanger increases the cooling rate of the product by almost 40% and reduces the required length of the heat exchanger by approximately 35%.The results also illustrate that the most proper thickness of the porous media is approximately equal to 90% of the product tube's thickness.Results of this study lead to design a porous heat exchanger in CHFS system for various inlet conditions.

（Dis）Economies of Scale in Business Software Systems Development and Enhancement Projects

In the software engineering literature, it is commonly believed that economies of scale do not occur in case of software Development and Enhancement Projects （D＆EP）. Their per-unit cost does not decrease but increase with the growth of such projects product size. Thus this is diseconomies of scale that occur in them. The significance of this phenomenon results from the fact that it is commonly considered to be one of the fundamental objective causes of their low effectiveness. This is of particular significance with regard to Business Software Systems （BSS） D＆EP characterized by exceptionally low effectiveness comparing to other software D＆EP. Thus the paper aims at answering the following two questions： （1） Do economies of scale really not occur in BSS D＆EP？ （2） If economies of scale may occur in BSS D＆EP, what factors are then promoting them？ These issues classify into economics problems of software engineering research and practice.

Strong coupling and catenary field enhancement in the hybrid plasmonic metamaterial cavity and TMDC monolayers

Strong coupling between resonantly matched surface plasmons of metals and excitons of quantum emitters results in the formation of new plasmon-exciton hybridized energy states.In plasmon-exciton strong coupling,plasmonic nanocavities play a significant role due to their ability to confine light in an ultrasmall volume.Additionally,two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides(TMDCs) have a significant exciton binding energy and remain stable at ambient conditions,making them an excellent alternative for investigating light-matter interactions.As a result,strong plasmon-exciton coupling has been reported by introducing a single metallic cavity.However,single nanoparticles have lower spatial confinement of electromagnetic fields and limited tunability to match the excitonic resonance.Here,we introduce the concept of catenary-shaped optical fields induced by plasmonic metamaterial cavities to scale the strength of plasmon-exciton coupling.The demonstrated plasmon modes of metallic metamaterial cavities offer high confinement and tunability and can match with the excitons of TMDCs to exhibit a strong coupling regime by tuning either the size of the cavity gap or thickness.The calculated Rabi splitting of Au-MoSe_2 and Au-WSe_2 heterostructures strongly depends on the catenary-like field enhancement induced by the Au cavity,resulting in room-temperature Rabi splitting ranging between 77.86 and 320 me V.These plasmonic metamaterial cavities can pave the way for manipulating excitons in TMDCs and operating active nanophotonic devices at ambient temperature.

Synergistic anionic/zwitterionic mixed surfactant system with high emulsification efficiency for enhanced oil recovery in low permeability reservoirs

Emulsification is one of the important mechanisms of surfactant flooding. To improve oil recovery for low permeability reservoirs, a highly efficient emulsification oil flooding system consisting of anionic surfactant sodium alkyl glucosyl hydroxypropyl sulfonate(APGSHS) and zwitterionic surfactant octadecyl betaine(BS-18) is proposed. The performance of APGSHS/BS-18 mixed surfactant system was evaluated in terms of interfacial tension, emulsification capability, emulsion size and distribution, wettability alteration, temperature-resistance and salt-resistance. The emulsification speed was used to evaluate the emulsification ability of surfactant systems, and the results show that mixed surfactant systems can completely emulsify the crude oil into emulsions droplets even under low energy conditions. Meanwhile,the system exhibits good temperature and salt resistance. Finally, the best oil recovery of 25.45% is achieved for low permeability core by the mixed surfactant system with a total concentration of 0.3 wt%while the molar ratio of APGSHS:BS-18 is 4:6. The current study indicates that the anionic/zwitterionic mixed surfactant system can improve the oil flooding efficiency and is potential candidate for application in low permeability reservoirs.

Is recovery enhancement after gastric cancer surgery really a safe approach for elderly patients?

BACKGROUND This study aimed to evaluate the safety of enhanced recovery after surgery(ERAS)in elderly patients with gastric cancer(GC).AIM To evaluate the safety of ERAS in elderly patients with GC.METHODS The PubMed,EMBASE,and Cochrane Library databases were used to search for eligible studies from inception to April 1,2023.The mean difference(MD),odds ratio(OR)and 95%confidence interval(95%CI)were pooled for analysis.The quality of the included studies was evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale scores.We used Stata(V.16.0)software for data analysis.RESULTS This study consists of six studies involving 878 elderly patients.By analyzing the clinical outcomes,we found that the ERAS group had shorter postoperative hospital stays(MD=-0.51,I2=0.00%,95%CI=-0.72 to-0.30,P=0.00);earlier times to first flatus(defecation;MD=-0.30,I²=0.00%,95%CI=-0.55 to-0.06,P=0.02);less intestinal obstruction(OR=3.24,I2=0.00%,95%CI=1.07 to 9.78,P=0.04);less nausea and vomiting(OR=4.07,I2=0.00%,95%CI=1.29 to 12.84,P=0.02);and less gastric retention(OR=5.69,I2=2.46%,95%CI=2.00 to 16.20,P=0.00).Our results showed that the conventional group had a greater mortality rate than the ERAS group(OR=0.24,I2=0.00%,95%CI=0.07 to 0.84,P=0.03).However,there was no statistically significant difference in major complications between the ERAS group and the conventional group(OR=0.67,I2=0.00%,95%CI=0.38 to 1.18,P=0.16).CONCLUSION Compared to those with conventional recovery,elderly GC patients who received the ERAS protocol after surgery had a lower risk of mortality.

Unsupervised Multi-Expert Learning Model for Underwater Image Enhancement

Underwater image enhancement aims to restore a clean appearance and thus improves the quality of underwater degraded images.Current methods feed the whole image directly into the model for enhancement.However,they ignored that the R,G and B channels of underwater degraded images present varied degrees of degradation,due to the selective absorption for the light.To address this issue,we propose an unsupervised multi-expert learning model by considering the enhancement of each color channel.Specifically,an unsupervised architecture based on generative adversarial network is employed to alleviate the need for paired underwater images.Based on this,we design a generator,including a multi-expert encoder,a feature fusion module and a feature fusion-guided decoder,to generate the clear underwater image.Accordingly,a multi-expert discriminator is proposed to verify the authenticity of the R,G and B channels,respectively.In addition,content perceptual loss and edge loss are introduced into the loss function to further improve the content and details of the enhanced images.Extensive experiments on public datasets demonstrate that our method achieves more pleasing results in vision quality.Various metrics(PSNR,SSIM,UIQM and UCIQE) evaluated on our enhanced images have been improved obviously.

Studies on the Fluorescence Enhancement Effect of Eu-La-DBM-DPG-Acetone System

The study of fluorescence enhancement has attracted attention recently. For example, the sensitivity and selectivity of Eu-thenoyltrifluoroacetone （TTA）phenan-throline and Eu-diphacinone-ammonia systems in Triton X-100 micelles are increased by the addition of La;Gd;, Tb;, Lu;or Y;. The mechanism of this fluorescence（?）