GP-GAN: Gender Preserving GAN for Synthesizing Faces from Landmarks

Facial landmarks constitute the most compressed representation of faces and are known to preserve information such as pose, gender and facial structure present in the faces. Several works exist that attempt to perform high-level face-related analysis tasks based on landmarks. In contrast, in this work, an attempt is made to tackle the inverse problem of synthesizing faces from their respective landmarks. The primary aim of this work is to demonstrate that information preserved by landmarks (gender in particular) can be further accentuated by leveraging generative models to synthesize corresponding faces. Though the problem is particularly challenging due to its ill-posed nature, we believe that successful synthesis will enable several applications such as boosting performance of high-level face related tasks using landmark points and performing dataset augmentation. To this end, a novel face-synthesis method known as Gender Preserving Generative Adversarial Network (GP-GAN) that is guided by adversarial loss, perceptual loss and a gender preserving loss is presented. Further, we propose a novel generator sub-network UDeNet for GP-GAN that leverages advantages of U-Net and DenseNet architectures. Extensive experiments and comparison with recent methods are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, this paper is accepted as 2018 24th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR2018

Exploring the evidence base for acupuncture in the treatment of Meniere’s Syndrome — A systematic review

Meniere’s syndrome is a long-term, progressive disease that damages the balance and hearing parts of the inner ear. To address the paucity of information on which evidence-based treatment decisions should be made, a systematic review of acupuncture for Meniere’s syndrome was undertaken. The method used was a systematic review of English and Chinese literature, from six databases for randomized, non-randomized and observational studies. All studies were critically appraised and a narrative approach to data synthesis was adopted. Twenty-seven studies were included in this review (9 in English and 18 in Chinese languages): three randomized controlled trials, three non-randomized controlled studies and four pre-test, post-test designs. All but one of the studies was conducted in China. The studies covered body acupuncture, ear acupuncture, scalp acupuncture, fluid acupuncture point injection and moxibustion. The studies were of varying quality. The weight of evidence, across all study types, is of beneficial effect from acupuncture, for those in an acute phase or those who have had Meniere’s syndrome for a number of years. The review reinforces the importance of searching for studies from English and Chinese literature. The transferability of the findings from China to a Western context needs confirmation. Further research is also needed to clarify questions around the appropriate frequency and number of treatment/courses of acupuncture. The weight of evidence suggests a potential benefit of acupuncture for persons with Meniere’s disease, including those in an acute phase and reinforces the importance of searching for published studies in the Chinese language

Rephasing Invariants of CP and T Violation in the Four-Neutrino Mixing Models

We calculate the rephasing invariants of CP and T violation in a favorable parametrization of the 4x4 lepton flavor mixing matrix. Their relations with the CP- and T-violating asymmetries in neutrino oscillations are derived, and the matter effects are briefly discussed.Comment: RevTex 9 pages. Slight changes. Phys. Rev. D (in press

Reducing cultural barriers via Internet courses

A web-based learning environment has been developed to support students from China who are studying in the UK and are confronted by many cultural barriers, which may impede their academic studies.The electronic environment incorporates a number of approaches to support learning, ranging from a simple text-based presentation to more active methods, including opportunities to use search-based learning strategies. Experimental results demonstrate a clear advantage for these active approaches.Internet support was also provided for students in the form of an E-learning course for academic writing, which featured extensive opportunities for interactions with English peers. The experimental results demonstrated that the group with access to the E-course successfully acquired skills, resulting in their academic writing being indistinguishable from native English speakers

The I^G J^{PC}=1^- 1^{-+} Tetraquark States

We study the tetraquark states with I^G J^{PC}=1^- 1^{-+} in the QCD sum rule. After exhausting all possible flavor structures, we analyses both the SVZ and finite energy sum rules. Both approaches lead to a mass around 1.6 GeV for the state with the quark contents q q q_bar q_bar, and around 2.0 GeV for the state with the quark contents q s q_bar s_bar. The flavor structure 3_bar * 6_bar + 6 * 3 is preferred. Our analysis strongly indicates that both pi1(1600) and pi1(2015) are also compatible with the exotic tetraquark interpretation, which are sometimes labeled as candidates of the 1^{-+} hybrid mesons. Moreover one of their dominant decay modes is a pair of axial-vector and pseudoscalar mesons such as b1(1235) pi, which is sometimes considered as the characteristic decay mode of the hybrid mesons.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, revised version to appear in Phys. Rev.