Realizing video analytic service in the fog-based infrastructure-less environments

Deep learning has unleashed the great potential in many fields and now is the most significant facilitator for video analytics owing to its capability to providing more intelligent services in a complex scenario. Meanwhile, the emergence of fog computing has brought unprecedented opportunities to provision intelligence services in infrastructure-less environments like remote national parks and rural farms. However, most of the deep learning algorithms are computationally intensive and impossible to be executed in such environments due to the needed supports from the cloud. In this paper, we develop a video analytic framework, which is tailored particularly for the fog devices to realize video analytic service in a rapid manner. Also, the convolution neural networks are used as the core processing unit in the framework to facilitate the image analysing process

Facile one-pot synthesis of ZnO/SnO₂ heterojunction photocatalysts with excellent photocatalytic activity and photostability

Facile one-pot synthesis of ZnO/SnO₂ heterojunction photocatalysts with excellent photocatalytic activity and photostabilit

Enhanced Raman scattering and photocatalytic activity of Ag/ZnO heterojunction nanocrystals

Enhanced Raman scattering and photocatalytic activity of Ag/ZnO heterojunction nanocrystal

The growing applications of SuFEx click chemistry

SuFEx (Sulfur Fluoride Exchange) is a modular, next generation family of click reactions, geared towards the rapid and reliable assembly of functional molecules. This review discusses the growing number of applications of SuFEx, which can be found in nearly all areas of modern chemistry; from drug discovery to materials science.</p

Simulating vertical phytoplankton dynamics in a stratified ocean using a two-layered ecosystem model

Phytoplankton account for around half of planetary primary production and are instrumental in regulating ocean biogeochemical cycles. Around 70 % of the oceans is characterized by either seasonal or permanent stratification. In such regions, it has been postulated that two distinct planktonic ecosystems exist, one that occupies the nutrient-limited surface mixed layer and another that resides below the mixed layer in a low-light, nutrient-rich environment. Owing to challenges observing the planktonic ecosystem below the mixed layer, it remains largely unexplored. Consequently, it is rarely characterized explicitly in marine ecosystem models. Here, we develop a simple, two-layered box model comprised of an ecosystem (nutrient, phytoplankton, and zooplankton – NPZ) in the surface mixed layer and a separate one (NPZ) in a subsurface layer below it. The two ecosystems are linked only by dynamic advection of nutrients between layers and controls on light attenuation. The model is forced with surface light (modelled from the top of the atmosphere) and observations of mixed layer depth. We run our model at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site and compare results with a time series of more than 30 years for phytoplankton and nutrient observations. When compared with observations, the model simulates contrasting seasonal and interannual variability in chlorophyll in the two layers, reproducing the observed trends post-2011. A shoaling mixed layer post-2011, driven by ocean warming, increases light availability in both layers, which alters surface phytoplankton physiology while increasing subsurface phytoplankton biomass. Results lend support to the hypothesis that the euphotic zone of stratified systems can be described using two vertically separated planktonic ecosystems. Nevertheless, simulating the ecosystem in the subsurface layer was more challenging than the ecosystem in the surface mixed layer as less is known about model parameters and processes due to a lack of measurements, suggesting that more work is needed to study controls on subsurface planktonic communities

Deformation of 3D printed agglomerates: Multiscale experimental tests and DEM simulation

Deformation of 3D printed agglomerates: Multiscale experimental tests and DEM simulatio

Photocatalytic activity of ZnO/Sn₁_ₓZnₓO₂_x nanocatalysts: a synergistic effect of doping and heterojunction

Photocatalytic activity of ZnO/Sn₁_ₓZnₓO₂_x nanocatalysts: a synergistic effect of doping and heterojunctio

Permian integrative stratigraphy, biotas, paleogeographical and paleoclimatic evolution of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding areas

The Permian Period was a critical time interval during which various blocks of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau have experienced profound and complex paleogeographical changes. The supercontinent Pangea was formed to its maximum during this interval, hampering a global east-to-west trending equatorial warm ocean current. Meanwhile, a semi-closed Tethys Ocean warm pool formed an eastward-opening oceanic embayment of Pangea, and became an engine fostering the evolutions of organisms and environmental changes during the Paleozoic-Mesozoic transition. Stratigraphy and preserved fossil groups have proved extremely useful in understanding such changes and the evolutionary histories of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Widely distributed Permian deposits and fossils from various blocks of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau exhibited varied characteristics, reflecting these blocks’ different paleolatitude settings and drifting histories. The Himalaya Tethys Zone south to the Yarlung Zangbo suture zone, located in the northern Gondwanan margin, yields fossil assemblages characterized by cold-water organisms throughout the Permian, and was affliated to those of the Gondwanaland. Most of the exotic limestone blocks within the Yarlung Zangbo suture zone are Guadalupian (Middle Permian) to Early Triassic in age. These exotic limestone blocks bear fossil assemblages that have transitional affinities between the warm Tethys and cold Gondwanan regions, suggesting that they most probably represent seamount deposits in the Neo-Tethys Ocean. During the Asselian to Sakmarian (Cisuralian, also Early Permian), the Cimmerian microcontinents in the northern part of Gondwana preserved glacio-marine deposits of Asselian to Sakmarian, and contained typical Gondwana-type cold-water faunas. By the middle Cisuralian (∼290–280 Ma), the Cimmerian microcontinents rifted off from the Gondwanaland, and drifted northward allometrically due to the active magmatism of the Panjal Traps in the northern margin of the Indian Plate. Two slices of microcontinents are discerned as a result of such allometic drifting. The northern Cimmerian microcontinent slice, consisting of South Qiangtang, Baoshan, and Sibuma blocks, drifted relatively quickly, and preserved widespread carbonate deposits and warm-water faunas since Artinskian. By contrast, the southern Cimmerian microcontinent slice, consisting of Lhasa, Tengchong, and Irrawaddy blocks, drifted relatively slowly, and were characterized by widespread carbonate deposits containing warm-water faunas of late Kungurian to Lopingian (Late Permian). As such, these blocks rifted off from the northern Gondwanan margin since at least the Kungurian. Thus, it can be inferred that these blocks were incorperated into the low latitude, warm-water regions later than the northern Cimmerian slice. Such discrepancies in depositional sequences and paleobiogeography imply that the rifting of Cimmerian microcontinents resulted in the formation of both Meso-Tethys and Neo-Tethys oceans during the Cisuralian. By contrast, the North Qiangtang block, because of its further northern paleogeographical position, contains warm-water faunas throughout the whole Permian Period that are affiliated well with the faunas from the South China, Simao, and Indochina blocks. Together, these blocks belonged to the members of the northern Paleo-Tethys Ocean. Thus, an archipelagic paleogeographical framework divided by Paleo-, Meso-, and Neo-Tethys oceans was formed, fostering a global biodiversity centre within the Tethys warm pool. Since most of the allochthonous blocks assembling the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau were situated in the middle to high latitude regions during the Permian, they preserved most sensitive paleoclimate records of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA), the Artinskian global warming event, and the rapid warming event at the end-Permian. Therefore, sedimentological and paleontological records of these blocks are the unique window through which we can understand global evolutions of tectonic movement and paleoclimate, and their impacts on spatiotemporal distributions of comtemporaneous biotas.</p

Measurement of a MMP-2 degraded Titin fragment in serum reflects changes in muscle turnover induced by atrophy.

In this study we sought to determine whether a Titin peptide fragment can serve as a clinical biomarker for changes in muscle mass