Global Information Processing Research Articles

LHB-YOLOv8: An Optimized YOLOv8 Network for Complex Background Drop Stone Detection

Real-time detection of rockfall on slopes is an essential part of a smart worksite. As a result, target detection techniques for rockfall detection have been rapidly developed. However, the complex geologic environment of slopes, special climatic conditions, and human factors pose significant challenges to this research. In this paper, we propose an enhanced high-speed slope rockfall detection method based on YOLOv8n. First, the LSKAttention mechanism is added to the backbone part to improve the model’s ability to balance the processing of global and local information, which enhances the model’s accuracy and generalization ability. Second, in order to ensuredetection accuracy for smaller targets, an enhanced detection head is added, and other detection heads of different sizes are combined to form a multi-scale feature fusion to improve the overall detection performance. Finally, a bidirectional feature pyramid network (BiFPN) is introduced in the neck to effectively reduce the parameters and computational complexity and improve the overall performance of rockfall detection. In addition we compare the LSKAttention mechanism with other attention mechanisms to verify the effectiveness of the improvements. Compared with the baseline model, our method improves the average accuracy mAP@0.5 by 4.8%. Moreover, the amount of parameters is reduced by 20.2%. Among the different evaluation criteria, the LHB-YOLOv8 method shows obvious advantages, making it suitable for engineering applications and the practical deployment of slope rockfall detection systems.

GFN: A Garbage Classification Fusion Network Incorporating Multiple Attention Mechanisms

With the increasing global attention to environmental protection and the sustainable use of resources, waste classification has become a critical issue that needs urgent resolution in social development. Compared with the traditional manual waste classification methods, deep learning-based waste classification systems offer significant advantages. This paper proposes an innovative deep learning framework, Garbage FusionNet (GFN), aimed at tackling the waste classification challenge. GFN enhances classification performance by integrating the local feature extraction strengths of ResNet with the global information processing capabilities of the Vision Transformer (ViT). Furthermore, GFN incorporates the Pyramid Pooling Module (PPM) and the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM), which collectively improve multi-scale feature extraction and emphasize critical features, thereby increasing the model’s robustness and accuracy. The experimental results on the Garbage Dataset and Trashnet demonstrate that GFN achieves superior performance compared with other comparison models.

Efficient Metal Corrosion Area Detection Model Combining Convolution and Transformer

In the context of rapid industrialization, efficiently detecting metal corrosion areas has become a critical task in preventing material damage. Unlike conventional semantic segmentation targets, metal corrosion characteristics vary significantly in color, texture, and size. Traditional image segmentation methods need improvement in scenarios involving occlusions, shadows, and defects. This paper proposes a convolution and sequence encoding combined network, MCD-Net, for metal corrosion area segmentation. First, a visual Transformer sequence encoder is introduced into the convolutional encoder–decoder network to enhance global information processing capabilities and establish long-range feature dependencies. A feature fusion method based on an attention module is proposed to enhance the model’s ability to recognize corrosion boundaries, thereby enhancing segmentation accuracy and model robustness. Finally, in the model’s decoding stage, a score-based multi-scale feature enhancement method is employed to emphasize significant features in the corrosion areas. Experimental results indicate that this method attained an F1 score of 84.53% on a public corrosion dataset, demonstrating the model’s deeper understanding and reasoning capabilities for shadow and defect features, as well as excellent noise resistance performance.

LRSDet: lightweight remote sensing target detection network with local-global information awareness and rapid sample assignment

Abstract With the rapid development of aerospace and unmanned aerial vehicles, using neural networks for object detection in optical remote sensing images (O-RSI) has encountered heightened challenges. The optical remote sensing images have the characteristics of complex geometric scenes, dense groups of objects, and significant multi-scale variations of objects; researchers need to use more complex models to achieve higher accuracy. However, this complexity also brings challenges to the application of lightweight scenes. Therefore, to cope with the trade-off challenge between model complexity and detection accuracy, we propose a lightweight network model LRSDet in this study. The model integrates local and global information processing mechanisms and introduces a fast positive sample assignment strategy to adapt to resource-constrained embedded and mobile platforms. By constructing a lightweight feature extraction network and a lightweight path aggregation network and incorporating the ESM-Attention module, the feature extraction capability of the model in complex remote sensing scenarios is significantly improved. In addition, the application of a dynamic soft threshold strategy further optimizes the positive sample selection process and improves the detection efficiency of the model. Experimental on the O-RSI datasets DIOR, NWPU VHR-10, and RSOD, while analyzing model real-time performance on aerial video and embedded devices, outperforming other state-of-the-art methods.

Application of deep learning for automatic detection of table tennis balls from an intelligent serving machine

The Intelligent Table Tennis Serving Machine (TTSM) has revolutionized table tennis training by simulating the variability and precision of human opponents. However, current systems lack the capability to track and analyze ball landing points, limiting comprehensive performance evaluation. To address this, we propose a novel approach utilizing YOLOv8 as the benchmark model for detecting table tennis balls launched by a TTSM, tailored to meet the demands of intelligent training systems. Our key innovation involves integrating a Res2Net architecture enhanced with a Non-local Attention Module (NLAM) and a Dilated Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (DASPP) unit into the neck network. This design improves the network’s ability to integrate multi-scale local features, thereby enhancing global information processing. The DASPP module, with adaptive dilation convolution, ensures thorough context comprehension. Additionally, we incorporate an Omni-dimensional Dynamic Convolution (ODConv) module in the detection head, employing parallel strategies to learn diverse and complementary attention cues, further enhancing detection accuracy and robustness. To validate our method, we conducted evaluations using the publicly available OpenTTGames dataset and a self-constructed dataset comprising over 10,000 table tennis ball images captured in various environments. Experimental results indicate that our method enhances mAP0.5, Precision, and Recall by 2.3%, 5.1%, and 0.9% on the OpenTTGames dataset, and by 3%, 2%, and 1.6% on the self-built dataset, respectively. Finally, we describe the optimization process of the intelligent TTSM system, which leverages keyframe analysis of ball landing points to provide feedback, thereby enabling continuous performance improvement in subsequent phases.

Neural Memory State Space Models for Medical Image Segmentation.

With the rapid advancement of deep learning, computer-aided diagnosis and treatment have become crucial in medicine. UNet is a widely used architecture for medical image segmentation, and various methods for improving UNet have been extensively explored. One popular approach is incorporating transformers, though their quadratic computational complexity poses challenges. Recently, State-Space Models (SSMs), exemplified by Mamba, have gained significant attention as a promising alternative due to their linear computational complexity. Another approach, neural memory Ordinary Differential Equations (nmODEs), exhibits similar principles and achieves good results. In this paper, we explore the respective strengths and weaknesses of nmODEs and SSMs and propose a novel architecture, the nmSSM decoder, which combines the advantages of both approaches. This architecture possesses powerful nonlinear representation capabilities while retaining the ability to preserve input and process global information. We construct nmSSM-UNet using the nmSSM decoder and conduct comprehensive experiments on the PH2, ISIC2018, and BU-COCO datasets to validate its effectiveness in medical image segmentation. The results demonstrate the promising application value of nmSSM-UNet. Additionally, we conducted ablation experiments to verify the effectiveness of our proposed improvements on SSMs and nmODEs.

Asymmetric Network Combining CNN and Transformer for Building Extraction from Remote Sensing Images.

The accurate extraction of buildings from remote sensing images is crucial in fields such as 3D urban planning, disaster detection, and military reconnaissance. In recent years, models based on Transformer have performed well in global information processing and contextual relationship modeling, but suffer from high computational costs and insufficient ability to capture local information. In contrast, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are very effective in extracting local features, but have a limited ability to process global information. In this paper, an asymmetric network (CTANet), which combines the advantages of CNN and Transformer, is proposed to achieve efficient extraction of buildings. Specifically, CTANet employs ConvNeXt as an encoder to extract features and combines it with an efficient bilateral hybrid attention transformer (BHAFormer) which is designed as a decoder. The BHAFormer establishes global dependencies from both texture edge features and background information perspectives to extract buildings more accurately while maintaining a low computational cost. Additionally, the multiscale mixed attention mechanism module (MSM-AMM) is introduced to learn the multiscale semantic information and channel representations of the encoder features to reduce noise interference and compensate for the loss of information in the downsampling process. Experimental results show that the proposed model achieves the best F1-score (86.7%, 95.74%, and 90.52%) and IoU (76.52%, 91.84%, and 82.68%) compared to other state-of-the-art methods on the Massachusetts building dataset, the WHU building dataset, and the Inria aerial image labeling dataset.

CTRNet: An Automatic Modulation Recognition Based on Transformer-CNN Neural Network

Deep learning (DL) has brought new perspectives and methods to automatic modulation recognition (AMR), enabling AMR systems to operate more efficiently and reliably in modern wireless communication environments through its powerful feature learning and complex pattern recognition capabilities. However, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs), which are used for sequence recognition tasks, face two main challenges, respectively: the ineffective utilization of global information and slow processing speeds due to sequential operations. To address these issues, this paper introduces CTRNet, a novel automatic modulation recognition network that combines a CNN with Transformer. This combination leverages Transformer’s ability to adequately capture the long-distance dependencies between global sequences and its advantages in sequence modeling, along with the CNN’s capability to extract features from local feature regions of signals. During the data preprocessing stage, the original IQ-modulated signals undergo sliding-window processing. By selecting the appropriate window sizes and strides, multiple subsequences are formed, enabling the network to effectively handle complex modulation patterns. In the embedding module, token vectors are designed to integrate information from multiple samples within each window, enhancing the model’s understanding and modeling ability of global information. In the feedforward neural network, a more effective Bilinear layer is employed for processing to capture the higher-order relationship between input features, thereby enhancing the ability of the model to capture complex patterns. Experiments conducted on the RML2016.10A public dataset demonstrate that compared with the existing algorithms, the proposed algorithm not only exhibits significant advantages in terms of parameter efficiency but also achieves higher recognition accuracy under various signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions. In particular, it performs relatively well in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, with clearer classification of higher-order modulations and notable overall accuracy improvement.

Improved FasterViT model for citrus disease diagnosis

Despite advances in deep learning for plant leaf disease recognition, accurately distinguishing morphological features under varying environmental conditions continues to pose significant challenges. Traditional deep learning models often fail to effectively merge local and global information, especially in small-scale datasets, impairing performance and elevating training costs. Focusing on citrus diseases, we propose an improved FasterViT Model, an advanced hybrid CNN-ViT framework that builds upon the FasterViT model. The proposed model seamlessly integrates CNN's rapid local learning capabilities with ViT's global information processing strength, thereby effectively extracting complex textures and morphological features from images. Cross-stage alternating Mixup and Cutout methods are strategically employed to enhance model robustness and generalization capabilities, particularly valuable for fast learning on small-scale datasets by simulating a more diverse training environment. Triplet Attention and AdaptiveAvgPool mechanisms are utilized to reduce training costs and optimize training performance. The proposed model is tested on both our specially constructed small-scale citrus disease dataset called in-field small dataset and the comprehensive PlantVillage dataset. The experimental results demonstrated that the model exhibits the capability of fast learning and adaptation to small sample training in plant disease detection tasks, and demonstrates the effectiveness of our improvement approach in improving model accuracy and reducing training costs. Additionally, its exemplary performance in transfer learning scenarios underscores its adaptability and broad applicability. This study not only highlights the efficacy of the improved FasterViT model in addressing the complexities of plant disease image recognition but also pioneers a new paradigm for developing efficient, scalable, and robust classification systems.

Association between sleep microarchitecture and cognition in obstructive sleep apnea.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) increases the risk of cognitive impairment. Measures of sleep microarchitecture from EEG may help identify patients at risk of this complication. Participants with suspected OSA (n = 1142) underwent in-laboratory polysomnography and completed sleep and medical history questionnaires, and tests of global cognition (Montreal Cognitive Assessment, MoCA), memory (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, RAVLT) and information processing speed (Digit-Symbol Coding, DSC). Associations between cognitive scores and stage 2 non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep spindle density, power, frequency and %-fast (12-16Hz), odds-ratio product (ORP), normalized EEG power (EEGNP), and the delta:alpha ratio were assessed using multivariable linear regression (MLR) adjusted for age, sex, education, and total sleep time. Mediation analyses were performed to determine if sleep microarchitecture indices mediate the negative effect of OSA on cognition. All spindle characteristics were lower in participants with moderate and severe OSA (p ≤ .001, vs. no/mild OSA) and positively associated with MoCA, RAVLT, and DSC scores (false discovery rate corrected p-value, q ≤ 0.026), except spindle power which was not associated with RAVLT (q = 0.185). ORP during NREM sleep (ORPNREM) was highest in severe OSA participants (p ≤ .001) but neither ORPNREM (q ≥ 0.230) nor the delta:alpha ratio were associated with cognitive scores in MLR analyses (q ≥ 0.166). In mediation analyses, spindle density and EEGNP (p ≥ .048) mediated moderate-to-severe OSA's negative effect on MoCA scores while ORPNREM, spindle power, and %-fast spindles mediated OSA's negative effect on DSC scores (p ≤ .018). Altered spindle activity, ORP and normalized EEG power may be important contributors to cognitive deficits in patients with OSA.

Effects of general anaesthesia in early childhood on local and global visual processing: a post hoc analysis of the APEX cohort study

BackgroundPreclinical studies suggest that early exposure to anaesthesia alters the visual system in mice and non-human primates. We investigated whether exposure to general anaesthesia leads to visual attention processing changes in children, which could potentially impact essential life skills, including learning. MethodsThis was a post hoc analysis of data from the APprentissages EXécutifs et cerveau chez les enfants d’âge scolaire (APEX) cohort study. A total of 24 healthy 9–10-yr-old children who were or were not exposed to general anaesthesia (for surgery) by a mean age of 3.8 (2.6) yr performed a visual attention task to evaluate ability to process either local details or general global visual information. Whether children were distracted by visual interference during global and local information processing was also assessed. ResultsParticipants included in the analyses (n=12 participants exposed to general anaesthesia and n=12 controls) successfully completed (>90% of correct answers) the trial tasks. Children from both groups were equally distracted by visual interference. However, children who had been exposed to general anaesthesia were more attracted to global visual information than were control children (P=0.03). ConclusionsThese findings suggest lasting effects of early-life exposure to general anaesthesia on visuospatial abilities. Further investigations of the mechanisms by which general anaesthesia could have delayed effects on how children perceive their visual environment are needed.

A Study of Major Depressive Disorder Based on Resting-State Multilayer EEG Function Network

Depression is a complex mental disease with its pathological mechanism unclear. To depict the complete picture of the abnormal information interaction in a depressed brain, this study is the first to apply fully connected multilayer brain functional (FCMBF) network framework and proposed composite FCMBF (CFCMBF) network framework, combined with graph theory to analyze the within-frequency coupling (WFC) and cross-frequency coupling (CFC) of sensor-layer and source-layer electroencephalography (EEG) signals in relevant subjects. Results showed that in the sensor-layer FCMBF network, depressive patients showed significantly reduced functional connectivity, as well as abnormal global and local information processing abilities of the network, and these network properties were significantly correlated with depressive symptoms. In addition, from the perspective of depression recognition, we found that the sensor-layer CFCMBF network could achieve better classification accuracy, especially when using the overlapping degree of node under the right center region, its accuracy could reach <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$86.88\% \pm 9.25 \%$</tex-math> </inline-formula> . More importantly, the construction of the CFCMBF network has higher time efficiency and less information loss, since it not only measures the WFC and CFC between brain region representative signals (BRRSs) extracted from different brain regions, but also measures these two couplings between all nodes within each brain region. Although the FCMBF network contains more complete information by calculating WFC and CFC between all nodes distributed in each region, it will result in an enormous computational cost. In summary, this study proved the utility of multilayer brain network in revealing the abnormal brain interaction patterns of depression, and our proposed method might provide methodological support for efficient depression recognition research based on multilayer brain networks.

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor as a Potential Plasma Biomarker of Cognitive Impairment in Cerebral Small Vessel Disease.

As the pathogenesis of cerebral small vessel disease with cognitive impairment (CSVD-CI) remains unclear, identifying effective biomarkers can contribute to the clinical management of CSVD-CI. This study recruited 54 healthy controls (HCs), 60 CSVD-CI patients, and 57 CSVD cognitively normal (CSVD-CN) patients. All participants underwent neuropsychological assessments and multimodal magnetic resonance imaging. Macrophage migration inhibitory factors (MIFs) were assessed in plasma. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator model was used to determine a composite marker. Compared with HCs or CSVD-CN patients, CSVD-CI patients had significantly increased plasma MIF levels. In CSVD-CI patients, plasma MIF levels were significantly correlated with multiple cognitive assessment scores, plasma levels of blood-brain barrier (BBB)-related indices, white matter hyperintensity Fazekas scores, and the mean amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in the right superior temporal gyrus. Higher plasma MIF levels were significantly associated with worse global cognition and information processing speed in CSVD-CI patients. The composite marker (including plasma MIF) distinguished CSVD-CI patients from CSVD-CN and HCs with >80% accuracy. Meta-analysis indicated that blood MIF levels were significantly increased in CSVD-CI patients. In conclusion, plasma MIF is a potential biomarker for early identification of CSVD-CI. Plasma MIF may play a role in cognitive decline in CSVD through BBB dysfunction and changes in white matter hyperintensity and brain activity.

Remote Sensing Micro-Object Detection under Global and Local Attention Mechanism

With the rapid advancement of technology, satellite and drone technologies have had significant impacts on various fields, creating both opportunities and challenges. In areas like the military, urban planning, and environmental monitoring, the application of remote sensing technology is paramount. However, due to the unique characteristics of remote sensing images, such as high resolution, large-scale scenes, and small, densely packed targets, remote sensing object detection faces numerous technical challenges. Traditional detection methods are inadequate for effectively detecting small targets, rendering the accurate and efficient detection of objects in complex remote sensing images a pressing issue. Current detection techniques fall short in accurately detecting small targets compared to medium and large ones, primarily due to limited feature information, insufficient contextual data, and poor localization capabilities for small targets. In response, we propose an innovative detection method. Unlike previous approaches that often focused solely on either local or contextual information, we introduce a novel Global and Local Attention Mechanism (GAL), providing an in-depth modeling method for input images. Our method integrates fine-grained local feature analysis with global contextual information processing. The local attention concentrates on details and spatial relationships within local windows, enabling the model to recognize intricate details in complex images. Meanwhile, the global attention addresses the entire image’s global information, capturing overarching patterns and structures, thus enhancing the model’s high-level semantic understanding. Ultimately, a specific mechanism fuses local details with global context, allowing the model to consider both aspects for a more precise and comprehensive interpretation of images. Furthermore, we have developed a multi-head prediction module that leverages semantic information at various scales to capture the multi-scale characteristics of remote sensing targets. Adding decoupled prediction heads aims to improve the accuracy and robustness of target detection. Additionally, we have innovatively designed the Ziou loss function, an advanced loss calculation, to enhance the model’s precision in small target localization, thereby boosting its overall performance in small target detection. Experimental results on the Visdrone2019 and DOTA datasets demonstrate that our method significantly surpasses traditional methods in detecting small targets in remote sensing imagery.

MFCEN: A lightweight multi-scale feature cooperative enhancement network for single-image super-resolution

&lt;p&gt;In recent years, significant progress has been made in single-image super-resolution with the advancements of deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformer-based architectures. These two techniques have led the way in the field of super-resolution technology research. However, performance improvements often come at the cost of a substantial increase in the number of parameters, thereby limiting the practical applications of super-resolution methods. Existing lightweight super-resolution methods, which primarily focus on single-scale feature extraction, lead to the issue of missing multi-scale features. This results in incomplete feature acquisition and poor reconstruction of the image. In response to these challenges, this paper proposed a lightweight multi-scale feature cooperative enhancement network (MFCEN). The network consists of three parts: shallow feature extraction, deep feature extraction, and image reconstruction. In the deep feature extraction part, a novel integrated multi-level feature module was introduced. Compared to existing CNN and transformer hybrid super-resolution networks, MFCEN significantly reduced the number of parameters while maintaining performance. This improvement was particularly evident at a scale factor of 3. The network introduced a novel comprehensive integrated multi-level feature module, leveraging the strong local perceptual capabilities of CNNs and the superior global information processing of transformers. It was designed with depthwise separable convolutions for extracting local information and a block-scale and global feature extraction module based on vision transformers (ViTs). While extracting the three scales of features, a satisfiability attention mechanism with a feed-forward network that can control the information was used to keep the network lightweight. Experiments demonstrated that the proposed model surpasses the reconstruction performance of the 498K-parameter SPAN model with a mere 488K parameters. Extensive experiments on commonly used image super-resolution datasets further validated the effectiveness of the network.&lt;/p&gt;

PLA—A Privacy-Embedded Lightweight and Efficient Automated Breast Cancer Accurate Diagnosis Framework for the Internet of Medical Things

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) can automate breast tumor detection and classification with the potential of artificial intelligence. However, the leakage of sensitive data can cause harm to patients. To address this issue, this study proposed an intrauterine breast cancer diagnosis method, namely “Privacy-Embedded Lightweight and Efficient Automated (PLA)”, for IoMT, which represents an approach that combines privacy-preserving techniques, efficiency, and automation to achieve our goals. Firstly, our model is designed to achieve lightweight classification prediction and global information processing of breast cancer by utilizing an advanced IoMT-friendly ViT backbone. Secondly, PLA protects patients’ privacy by federated learning, taking the classification task of breast cancer as the main task and introducing the texture analysis task of breast cancer images as the auxiliary task to train the model. For our PLA framework, the classification accuracy is 0.953, the recall rate is 0.998 for the best, the F1 value is 0.969, the precision value is 0.988, and the classification time is 61.9 ms. The experimental results show that the PLA model performs better than all of the comparison methods in terms of accuracy, with an improvement of more than 0.5%. Furthermore, our proposed model demonstrates significant advantages over the comparison methods regarding time and memory.

Hexagon-based adaptive hierarchies for efficient point-in-spherical-polygon tests on GPUs

Point-in-spherical-polygon tests are a fundamental problem in computational geometry. For such tests, efficiency is much required for many global information processing matters, especially their real-time processing. Though many efforts have been made, it is still challenging due to the constraints from the non-Euclidean space of the sphere. Recently, a method is proposed to construct an Adaptive Hexagonal Hierarchical Grid (AHHG) to manage spherical polygon edges, by which the non-Euclidean space constraint of the sphere can be well handled to improve point-in-spherical-polygon tests. However, this method is very expensive in the construction of AHHGs, which prevents its use in practice. In this paper, we present novel measures to divide the task of AHHG construction into several subtasks to solve the problems that arise in the parallel construction of incongruent adaptive hierarchies, so we can exploit the parallel computing potential of GPUs for acceleration. We also develop measures to adaptively optimize the hierarchical levels of an AHHG for high efficiency. Experimental results show that we can answer 1,000,000 query points against dynamically varying spherical polygons in over 100,000 edges in real time on a personnel computer, where AHHGs for spherical polygons are individually constructed. This is much superior to the existing methods.

TANet: Transmission and atmospheric light driven enhancement of underwater images

Motivated by the adverse impact of light attenuation and scattering, which leads to color distortion and low contrast in underwater images, our study primarily focuses on enhancement techniques for these images using localized transmission feature analysis and global atmospheric light feature extraction. To this end, we propose a novel approach, named TANet, drawing upon the dynamics of transmission and atmospheric light. TANet integrates two primary components: a spatial domain-based Transmission-Driven Refinement module (TDR) and a frequency domain-based Atmospheric Light Removal Fourier Module (ALRF). The TDR module employs a Gated Multipurpose Unit with dual branches, selectively regulating input features. This allows for a refined merging of feature vectors that subsequently interact, enabling cross-channel feature integration. Capitalizing on the correlation between transmission and image quality, TDR facilitates the detailed enhancement of underwater images by depicting the perceived transmission across distinct image sections. Given that atmospheric light exhibits different attenuation rates under water due to varying wavelengths, and considering that atmospheric light is globally constant, thereby influencing underwater image capture, we developed the ALRF module. This caters to the processing of global information within the frequency domain, efficiently negating atmospheric light’s impact on underwater images and enhancing their quality and visibility. Our TANet’s superior performance is affirmed by extensive experimental results, demonstrating its effectiveness in underwater image enhancement.

Enhanced rich club connectivity in mild or moderate depression after nonpharmacological treatment: A preliminary study.

It has been suggested that the rich club organization in major depressive disorder (MDD) was altered. However, it remained unclear whether the rich club organization could be served as a biomarker that predicted the improvement of clinical symptoms in MDD. The current study included 29 mild or moderate patients with MDD, who were grouped into a treatment group (receiving cognitive behavioral therapy or real-time fMRI feedback treatment) and a no-treatment group. Resting-state MRI scans were obtained for all participants. Graph theory was employed to investigate the treatment-related changes in network properties and rich club organization. We found that patients in the treatment group had decreased depressive symptom scores and enhanced rich club connectivity following the nonpharmacological treatment. Moreover, the changes in rich club connectivity were significantly correlated with the changes in depressive symptom scores. In addition, the nonpharmacological treatment on patients with MDD increased functional connectivity mainly among the salience network, default mode network, frontoparietal network, and subcortical network. Patients in the no-treatment group did not show significant changes in depressive symptom scores and rich club organization. Those results suggested that the remission of depressive symptoms after nonpharmacological treatment in MDD patients was associated with the increased efficiency of global information processing.

Potential association of neutrophil extracellular traps with cognitive impairment in cerebral small vessel disease.

No acceptable biomarker can facilitate the early identification of cognitive impairment associated with cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) in the older persons. The neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in the inflammation response of circulatory and central systems are essential in destroying the blood-brain barrier. The present study aims to explore the potential associations of plasma NETs with cognitive performance in CSVD. We recruited 146 CSVD patients and 66 healthy controls (HCs), and comprehensive neuropsychological assessments and multimodal magnetic resonance imaging were conducted. Three NETs markers, viz., citrullination of histone H3, neutrophil elastase-DNA, and myeloperoxidase (MPO)-DNA, and four oxidative stress-related indexes in plasma samples were measured. The plasma levels of three NETs markers were more significantly elevated in CSVD patients than in HCs. Significant correlations of the three NETs markers were observed with multiple cognitive domain scores. Furthermore, higher plasma MDA and NETs levels were significantly associated with the worse Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores among CSVD patients. Moreover, plasma MPO-DNA levels significantly mediated the effect of the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation value within the bilateral caudate and the scores of global cognitive function, executive function, and information processing speed. Additionally, a panel of three NETs markers had the highest area under the curve value to distinguish the cognitively impaired CSVD patients from HCs and non-impaired ones. Therefore, plasma NETs may be potential biomarkers for early diagnosis of CSVD-related cognitive impairment. Activated lipid peroxidation in circulation and impaired caudate function support potential associations of plasma NETs in cognitively impaired CSVD patients.