OBJECTIVE: Embryonic stem cells (ES cells) is a special kind of cell population with totipotency and uninhibited self-renewal property. Researches on induced differentiation of ES cells were received and summed up to provide reasonable and constructive suggestions for clinical application of ES cells.DATA SOURCE: Papers published in Highwire press and Medline database were retrieved with keywords "Embryonic stem cell, differentiation, and induce" from 2000 to 2004. Additionally, papers published in Wanfang database were also retrieved with keywords "Embryonic stem cell" in Chinese from 2000 to 2004.STUDY SELECTION: Data were analyzed firstly in order to select papers related to induced differentiation. The inclusion criteria were selection of the original works, but the summaries and Meta analysis were excluded.DATA EXTRACTION: A total of 369 papers were chosen according to correlation with keywords; among them, 364 papers were in foreign language. After reading through summaries of these papers, 15 papers thoroughly discussing induced differentiation of ES cells were chosen for further intensive reading. Papers discussed various kinds of differential models, neural cells, cardiac muscle cells, epithelial cells and hematopoietic cells.DATA SYNTHESIS: The induced differential models of neural cells, cardiac muscle cells, epithelial cells and hematopoietic cells from ES cells were introduced comprehensively in the seven literatures. Based on these references mentioned above and other references which introduced cell model separately, all data were generally studied, sorted out and summed up.CONCLUSION: ES cells can be induced to be various kinds of cell models such as neural cells, epithelial cells, cardiac muscle cells and hematopoietic cells, which may be used to clarify the mechanism of cellular development and differentiation to provide good respects for clinical cellular therapy and screening of medicines.

This paper introduces the hardware and software of a biomechanical robot-based testing device. The bottom control orders, posture and torque data transmission, and the control algorithms are integrated in a unified visual control platform by Visual C+ +, with easy control and management. By using hybrid force-displacement control method to load the human spine, we can test the organizational structure and the force state of the FSU (Functional spinal unit) well, which overcomes the shortcomings due to the separation of the force and displacement measurement, thus greatly improves the measurement accuracy. Also it is esay to identify the spinal degeneration and the load-bearing impact on the organizational structure of the FSU after various types of surgery.
Algorithms ; Biomechanical Phenomena ; Equipment Design ; Humans ; Joints ; physiology ; Robotics ; instrumentation ; methods ; Software ; Spine ; physiology

In order to improve the effect and efficiency of the reconstructed image after hybrid volume rendering of different kinds of volume data from medical sequential slices or polygonal models, we propose a hybrid volume rendering method based on Shear-Warp with economical hardware. First, the hybrid volume data are pre-processed by Z-Buffer method and RLE (Run-Length Encoded) data structure. Then, during the process of compositing intermediate image, a resampling method based on the dual-interpolation and the intermediate slice interpolation methods is used to improve the efficiency and the effect. Finally, the reconstructed image is rendered by the texture-mapping technology of OpenGL. Experiments demonstrate the good performance of the proposed method.
Algorithms ; Computer Graphics ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Medical Illustration ; Models, Anatomic ; Phantoms, Imaging

A Fast Multi-resolution Volume Rendering Method (FMVRM) based on wavelet and Shear-Warp is herein proposed. In this method, the medical volume data is compressed using wavelet transformation first. Then based on the set resolution, the medical volume data is decompressed guided by Opacity transfer function (OTF). Finally, the 3D medical image is reconstructed on the basis of Shear-Warp using Block-based run length encoded (BRLE) data structure, in which, the aliasing artifacts resulting from under-sampling in Shear-Warp is avoided by the pre-integrated volume rendering technology. Experiments demonstrate the good performance of the proposed method.
Algorithms ; Artifacts ; Data Compression ; methods ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; methods

Limited by the imaging principle of whole body bone SPECT image, the gray value of bladder area is quite high, which affects the image's brightness, contrast and readability. In the meantime, the similarity between bladder area and focus makes it difficult for some images to be segmented automatically. In this paper, an improved Snake model, GVF Snake, is adopted to automatically segment bladder area, preparing for further processing of whole body bone SPECT images.
Algorithms ; Bone and Bones ; diagnostic imaging ; Humans ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Models, Anatomic ; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon ; methods ; Urinary Bladder

Based on the characteristic of the PET-CT multimodal image series, a novel image registration and fusion method is proposed, in which the cubic spline interpolation method is applied to realize the interpolation of PET-CT image series, then registration is carried out by using mutual information algorithm and finally the improved principal component analysis method is used for the fusion of PET-CT multimodal images to enhance the visual effect of PET image, thus satisfied registration and fusion results are obtained. The cubic spline interpolation method is used for reconstruction to restore the missed information between image slices, which can compensate for the shortage of previous registration methods, improve the accuracy of the registration, and make the fused multimodal images more similar to the real image. Finally, the cubic spline interpolation method has been successfully applied in developing 3D-CRT (3D Conformal Radiation Therapy) system.
Algorithms ; Artificial Intelligence ; Diagnostic Imaging ; methods ; Humans ; Image Enhancement ; instrumentation ; methods ; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted ; instrumentation ; methods ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; instrumentation ; methods ; Pattern Recognition, Automated ; methods ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; instrumentation ; methods ; Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted ; instrumentation ; methods ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; instrumentation ; methods

Multi-modal medical image fusion has important value in clinical diagnosis and treatment. In this paper, the multi-resolution analysis of Daubechies 9/7 Biorthogonal Wavelet Transform is introduced for anatomical and functional image fusion, then a new fusion algorithm with the combination of local standard deviation and energy as texture measurement is presented. At last, a set of quantitative evaluation criteria is given. Experiments show that both anatomical and metabolism information can be obtained effectively, and both the edge and texture features can be reserved successfully. The presented algorithm is more effective than the traditional algorithms.
Algorithms ; Artificial Intelligence ; Diagnostic Imaging ; methods ; Humans ; Image Enhancement ; methods ; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Pattern Recognition, Automated ; methods ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; methods ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; methods

In this paper, BP neural network is used to segment whole body bone SPECT image so that the lesion area can be recognized automatically. For the uncertain characteristics of SPECT images, it is hard to achieve good segmentation result if only the BP neural network is employed. Therefore, the segmentation process is divided into three steps: first, the optimal gray threshold segmentation method is employed for preprocessing, then BP neural network is used to roughly identify the lesions, and finally template match method and symmetry-removing program are adopted to delete the wrongly recognized areas.
Algorithms ; Bone and Bones ; diagnostic imaging ; Humans ; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Neural Networks (Computer) ; Pattern Recognition, Automated ; methods ; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon ; Whole Body Imaging

Oxidative stress is the result of imbalance between the formation of reactive oxygen species(ROS)and antioxidant level.Mitochondria are important organelles regulating oxidative stress.Telomerase reverse transcriptase(TERT)not only in the nucleus to maintain telomerase activity and telomere length,but also reversibly transits to mitochondria.Improving the activity of oxidative respiratory chain of mitochondria to reduce the production of mito-chondrial reactive oxygen species(mtROS)and to activate GSH system as well as autophagy pathway to promote the clearance of mtROS are all important to down-regulate the level of mtROS,which will alleviate oxidative stress and damage and keep the REDOX balance of cells and the normal function of the body.

ObjectiveBased on non-targeted metabolomics， to analyze the regulation of endogenous differential metabolites in serum of type 2 diabetes mellitus（T2DM） rats by Fuling Yunhua granules， and to clarify the metabolic pathways through which this granules exerted its effect on improving T2DM. MethodSeventy SD rats， half male and half female， were randomly divided into the control group， model group， and high， medium， low dose groups of Fuling Yunhua granules（20.70， 10.35， 5.18 g·kg^-1 in raw drug amount） and the positive drug group（pioglitazone hydrochloride tablets， 8.1 mg·kg^-1）. Except for the control group， other groups were fed with high-sugar and high-fat diet combined with intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin（STZ） to establish a T2DM rat model. After successful modeling， the treatment groups were administered the corresponding drugs by gavage， and the control group and model group were treated with an equal volume of saline by gavage， once/d， for 28 d. Fasting blood glucose（FBG） and glycosylated hemoglobin A1c（GHbA1c） levels were measured in all groups of rats during the administration period， and hematoxylin-eosin（HE） staining was used to observe the pathomorphological changes in the pancreatic tissues of rats at the end of the administration period. The endogenous metabolite levels in rat serum were detected by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-linear ion trap-electrostatic field orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry（UPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap MS）， and the data were processed using principal component analysis（PCA） and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis（OPLS-DA）. Differential metabolites were identified by the Human Metabolome Database（HMDB） and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes（KEGG）， and screened for differential metabolites with variable importance in the projection（VIP） value>1， P<0.05， and fold change（FC）<0.6 or FC>1. And the metabolic pathway enrichment analysis of the screened differential metabolites was performed by MetaboAnalyst 5.0， then the screened differential metabolites were diagnosed and evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic（ROC） curves. ResultCompared with the control group， the FBG level of rats in the model group increased significantly（P<0.01）， the GHbA1c content tended to increase， but the difference was not statistically significant， and the pancreatic tissue of rats was obviously damaged， the number of pancreatic islets decreased， and the pancreatic β-cells were obviously reduced， atrophied and enlarged. Compared with the model group， the FBG levels of rats in the high dose group of Fuling Yunhua granules and the positive drug group were significantly reduced after 2 weeks of administration（P<0.05， P<0.01）， the GHbA1c content of rats in the high dose group of Fuling Yunhua granules was significantly reduced（P<0.05）， and the pancreatic tissue lesions of rats in the different dose groups of Fuling Yunhua granules were reduced. The results of non-targeted metabolomics showed that 46 differential metabolites were significantly changed in the model group compared with the blank group. Pathway enrichment analysis found that T2DM mainly affected biological processes including biosynthesis of primary bile acid， D-amino acid metabolism， steroid hormone biosynthesis， and glycerophospholipid metabolism in rats. Compared with the model group， the levels of 8 differential metabolites in the high dose group of Fuling Yunhua granules were significantly adjusted， and the pathway enrichment analysis found that D-amino acid metabolism， retinol metabolism， glycine， serine and threonine metabolism， tryptophan metabolism and other metabolic pathways were mainly involved. ROC curves further analysis revealed that the four characteristic differential markers of 11-cis-retinol， D-piperidinic acid， D-serine， and p-cresol sulfate had high diagnostic value for the treatment of T2DM with Fuling Yunhua granules. ConclusionFuling Yunhua granules can improve the symptoms of T2DM rats by regulating the amino acid metabolic and retinol metabolic pathways through the modulation of endogenous differential metabolites.