A Unified Compression Framework for Efficient Speech-Driven Talking-Face Generation

Virtual humans have gained considerable attention in numerous industries, e.g., entertainment and e-commerce. As a core technology, synthesizing photorealistic face frames from target speech and facial identity has been actively studied with generative adversarial networks. Despite remarkable results of modern talking-face generation models, they often entail high computational burdens, which limit their efficient deployment. This study aims to develop a lightweight model for speech-driven talking-face synthesis. We build a compact generator by removing the residual blocks and reducing the channel width from Wav2Lip, a popular talking-face generator. We also present a knowledge distillation scheme to stably yet effectively train the small-capacity generator without adversarial learning. We reduce the number of parameters and MACs by 28$\times$ while retaining the performance of the original model. Moreover, to alleviate a severe performance drop when converting the whole generator to INT8 precision, we adopt a selective quantization method that uses FP16 for the quantization-sensitive layers and INT8 for the other layers. Using this mixed precision, we achieve up to a 19$\times$ speedup on edge GPUs without noticeably compromising the generation quality.Comment: MLSys Workshop on On-Device Intelligence, 2023; Demo: https://huggingface.co/spaces/nota-ai/compressed_wav2li

Comparison of sedation outcome according to the dose of chloral hydrate in children requiring laceration repair

Purpose To compare the sedation outcome according to the dose of per os chloral hydrate in children who underwent laceration repair in the emergency department (ED). Methods This retrospective study was performed to the children who underwent sedation using chloral hydrate for laceration repair in the ED from January 2015 through November 2015. A total of 370 children aged younger than 6 years underwent the sedation. We compared the induction time, duration of sedation, and ED length of stay (EDLOS) between the single dose (50 mg/kg) and additional dose (plus 25 mg/kg) groups. Results Of 370 children, 335 (90.5%) were sedated successfully, 284 (76.8%) were sedated with initial dose (the single dose group), and 51 (13.8%) were sedated with additional dose (the additional dose group). The induction time and EDLOS were longer in the additional dose group (induction time: 31.0 ± 17.2 minutes vs. 96.2 ± 25.4 minutes, P < 0.001; EDLOS: 137.2 ± 35.5 minutes vs. 193.0 ± 36.0 minutes, P < 0.001). The duration of sedation showed no difference between the 2 groups (44.4 ± 24.0 minutes vs. 42.0 ± 20.8 minutes; P = 0.500). No one had serious adverse reactions. Conclusion Additional dose of chloral hydrate can increase the induction time and EDLOS without increasing the duration of sedation and causing serious adverse reactions. This information may improve the efficiency of ED workflow when shared with parents of the children

Radiation-Induced Complications after Breast Cancer Radiation Therapy: a Pictorial Review of Multimodality Imaging Findings

The purpose of this pictorial essay is to illustrate the multimodality imaging findings of a wide spectrum of radiation-induced complications of breast cancer in the sequence of occurrence. We have classified radiation-induced complications into three groups based on the time sequence of occurrence. Knowledge of these findings will allow for the early detection of complications as well as the ability to differentiate tumor recurrence

Expression of aldo-keto reductase family 1 member C1 (AKR1C1) gene in porcine ovary and uterine endometrium during the estrous cycle and pregnancy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aldo-keto reductase family 1 member C1 (AKR1C1) belongs to a superfamily of NADPH-dependent reductases that convert a wide range of substrates, including carbohydrates, steroid hormones, and endogenous prostaglandins. The 20alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (20alpha-HSD) is a member of AKR family. The aims of this study were to determine its expression in the ovary and uterus endometrium during the estrous cycle and pregnancy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) experiments were performed to obtain the 5' and 3' ends of the porcine <it>20alpha-HSD </it>cDNA. Reverse-transcriptase-PCR (RT-PCR), real-time PCR, northern blot analysis, and western blot analysis were performed to examine the expression of porcine 20alpha-HSD. Immunohistochemical analysis was also performed to determine the localization in the ovary.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The porcine 20alpha-HSD cDNA is 957 bp in length and encodes a protein of 319 amino acids. The cloned cDNA was virtually the same as the porcine <it>AKR1C1 </it>gene (337 amino acids) reported recently, and only differed in the C-terminal region (the <it>AKR1C1 </it>gene has a longer C-terminal region than our sequence). The <it>20alpha-HSD </it>gene (from now on referred to as <it>AKR1C1</it>) cloned in this paper encodes a deletion of 4 amino acids, compared with the C-terminal region of <it>AKR1C1 </it>genes from other animals. Porcine AKR1C1 mRNA was expressed on day 5, 10, 12, 15 of the cycle and 0-60 of pregnancy in the ovary. The mRNA was also specifically detected in the uterine endometrium on day 30 of pregnancy. Western blot analysis indicated that the pattern of AKR1C1 protein in the ovary during the estrous cycle and uterus during early pregnancy was similar to that of <it>AKR1C1 </it>mRNA expression. The recombinant protein produced in CHO cells was detected at approximately 37 kDa. Immunohistochemical analysis also revealed that pig AKR1C1 protein was localized in the large luteal cells in the early stages of the estrous cycle and before parturition.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study demonstrated that AKR1C1 mRNA and protein are coordinately expressed in the luteal cell of ovary throughout the estrous cycle and in the uterus on day 30 of pregnancy. Thus, the porcine AKR1C1 gene might control important mechanisms during the estrous cycle.</p

Mutations at codons 178, 200-129, and 232 contributed to the inherited prion diseases in Korean patients

Background: Polymorphisms of the human prion protein gene (PRNP) contribute to the genetic determinants of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Numerous polymorphisms in the promoter regions as well as the open reading frame of PRNP were investigated. Greater than 90% of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese carry the homozygote 129 MM codon. In Korea, polymorphisms have not been comprehensively studied, except codons 129 and 219 in PRNP among Korean CJD cases. Although polymorphisms at codons 129 and 219 play an important role in susceptibility to sporadic CJD, patients with other polymorphisms in PRNP exhibited critical distinctions of clinical symptoms. Methods: The genetic analyses of PRNP were carried out among probable CJD patients in comparison with the results from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG). Results: The molecular analyses revealed that three mutations at codons D178N, E200K, and M232R in heterozygosity. Patients with the D178N and M232R mutations had a 129MM codon, whereas the patient with the E200K mutation showed 129MV heterozygosity. They all revealed strong 14-3-3 positive signals. The 67-year-old patient with the D178N-129M mutation showed progressive gait disturbance and dysarthria was in progress. The 58-year-old patient with the E200K mutation coupled to the 129MV codon had gait disturbance, dysarthria, agitation, and ataxic gait, and progressed rapidly to death 3 months from the first onset of symptoms. The 65-year-old patient with the M232R mutation showed rapidly progressive memory decline and gait disturbance, and died within 16 months after onset of symptoms. Conclusion: Despite differences in ethnicity, the clinical and pathological outcomes were similar to the respective mutations around the world, except absence of insomnia in D178N-129M subject.This research was funded by the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs, Korea (grant number, 4800-4835-301-210).Shiga Y, 2007, J NEUROL, V254, P1509, DOI 10.1007/s00415-007-0540-9Kovacs GG, 2005, HUM GENET, V118, P166, DOI 10.1007/s00439-005-0020-1Zarranz JJ, 2005, J NEUROL NEUROSUR PS, V76, P1491, DOI 10.1136/jnnp.2005.056606KONG Q, 2004, PRION BIOL DIS, P673Spacey SD, 2004, ARCH NEUROL-CHICAGO, V61, P122Huang N, 2003, NEUROLOGY, V61, P354Kovacs GG, 2002, J NEUROL, V249, P1567, DOI 10.1007/s00415-002-0896-9Collinge J, 2001, ANNU REV NEUROSCI, V24, P519Schroter A, 2000, ARCH NEUROL-CHICAGO, V57, P1751Wong NKC, 2000, J MOL GRAPH MODEL, V18, P126Taniwaki Y, 2000, J NEUROL NEUROSUR PS, V68, P388Wiltfang J, 1999, J NEUROCHEM, V73, P2485Hainfellner JA, 1999, ANN NEUROL, V45, P812Swietnicki W, 1998, J BIOL CHEM, V273, P31048Riek R, 1998, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V95, P11667, DOI 10.1073/pnas.95.20.11667Zerr I, 1998, ANN NEUROL, V43, P32ZEIDLER M, 1998, WHO MANUAL STRENGTHERosenmann H, 1997, NEUROLOGY, V49, P593Hoque MZ, 1996, ACTA NEUROPATHOL, V92, P441Nagayama M, 1996, NEUROLOGY, V47, P1313Steinhoff BJ, 1996, ARCH NEUROL-CHICAGO, V53, P162PARCHI P, 1995, CURR OPIN NEUROL, V8, P286BROWN P, 1994, ANN NEUROL, V35, P513PRUSINER SB, 1994, ANN NEUROL, V35, P385GABIZON R, 1994, PHILOS T ROY SOC B, V343, P385HITOSHI S, 1993, J NEUROL SCI, V120, P208GOLDFARB LG, 1992, SCIENCE, V258, P806BROWN P, 1991, EUR J EPIDEMIOL, V7, P469STAHL N, 1990, BIOCHEMISTRY-US, V29, P8879BROWN P, 1986, ANN NEUROL, V20, P597

Suturing the world : the micro-practices of care and the politics of life in Chiang Mai

Based on eighteen months of fieldwork between 2010 and 2012, this thesis examines how universal health coverage is shaped and experienced in Thailand. How might such an ambitious social project that aims to ensure every citizen access to a full-range of health services become feasible in a socially divided, politically unstable, lower-middle-income country like Thailand? This thesis investigates the establishment of universal health coverage not as a given condition but as a political and moral work in progress. How is the provision of care perceived, enacted, and assembled in the frontline of the Thai public health care system? What kinds of political subjectivities are implicated in the mundane and extraordinary struggles to make care accessible and durable? With special focus on the human stakes of health care for poor Thai and non-citizen Shan migrant populations, this thesis offers new ethnographic insights into the significance of micro-practices of care for the politics of life. Situated in a district hospital on the periphery of Chiang Mai City, I examine the multiple circuits of care threaded through everyday socio-cultural practice. Practices of care and their implications are multi-dimensional. Beginning with the workings of the public hospital, I show how caring and governing are interrelated. While the promise of the universal health coverage policy is mitigated by rules of eligibility and entitlement, hospital staff's aspirations to realize a government of care make this policy substantively universal. Ethnic minorities and Shan migrants in vulnerable situations actively utilize Thai public hospitals, navigating the perils of receiving the gift of care. I show how they elicit state care and secure a foothold in the political community through artful practices of being governed. In their struggles to maintain their family amidst structural violence and precariousness Shan women also employ tactics of creative subsistence that make life liveable. At junctures when the desire to care exceeds the boundaries of belonging and sameness, I explore how critically ill neonates and spiritual entities-alien others who hover at the margins of life-are drawn into alliances of care. I conceptualize the 'desire to care' as a conjunctural expression of the life-intensifying proclivities of medical, state, and spiritual sovereignty and argue that practices of care, even in micro forms, nourish potentials to create a sphere of relations and a politics of life. Highlighting people's intertwined experience of freedom and obligation, autonomy and dependence, I demonstrate how individual and collective pursuits of formulating relations of care dismantle and reassemble the notion of universal citizenship and entitlement. At its core, this thesis reorients care as a suturing and sutured state, practice that acts upon the world, and value accumulated by practice, which repairs, envisions, and transforms the human condition in a provisionary but concrete manner

Sonerila cardamomensis (Melastomataceae), a new species from Cambodia

Sonerila cardamomensis, a new species of family Melastomataceae from the Central Cardamom Protected Area in Koh Kong province of southwestern Cambodia, is described and illustrated. The species is similar to S. violifolia Hook.f. ex Triana, but is readily distinguished by its cordate leaf base, lack of setae at the nodes, longer pedicels, smaller petals, smaller hypanthiums and smaller capsules

Sonerila cardamomensis (Melastomataceae), a new species from Cambodia

Sonerila cardamomensis, a new species of family Melastomataceae from the Central Cardamom Protected Area in Koh Kong province of southwestern Cambodia, is described and illustrated. The species is similar to S. violifolia Hook.f. ex Triana, but is readily distinguished by its cordate leaf base, lack of setae at the nodes, longer pedicels, smaller petals, smaller hypanthiums and smaller capsules

Virus Incidence of Sweet Potato in Korea from 2011 to 2014

A nationwide survey was performed to investigate the current incidence of viral diseases in Korean sweet potatoes for germplasm and growing fields from 2011 to 2014. A total of 83.8% of the germplasm in Korea was infected with viruses in 2011. Commercial cultivars that were used to supply growing fields were infected at a rate of 62.1% in 2012. Among surveyed viruses, the incidence of five Potyvirus species that infect sweet potato decreased between 2012 and 2013, and then increased again in 2014. Representatively, the incidence of Sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) was 87.0% in 2012, 20.7% in 2013 and then increased to 35.3% in 2014. Unlike RNA viruses, DNA viruses were shown to decrease continuously. The incidence of Sweet potato leaf curl virus (SPLCV) was 5.5% in 2003, 59.5% in 2011, and 47.4% in 2012. It then decreased continuously year by year to 33.2% in 2013, and then 25.6% in 2014. While the infection rate of each virus species showed a tendency to decline, the virus infection status was more variable in 2013 and 2014. Nevertheless, the high rate of single infections and mixed infection combinations were more variable than the survey results from 2012. As shown in the results from 2013, the most prevalent virus infection was a single infection at 27.6%, with the highest rate of infection belonging to sweet potato symptomless virus-1 (SPSMV-1) (12.9%). Compared to 2013, infection combinations were more varied in 2014, with a total of 122 kinds of mixed infection

Two New Cyototoxic Cardenolides from the Whole Plants of Adonis multiflora Nishikawa &amp; Koki Ito

A phytochemical investigation of the whole plants of Adonis multiflora Nishikawa &amp; Koki Ito. resulted in the isolation and identification of two new cardenolides—adonioside A (1) and adonioside B (6)—as well as four known cardenolides: tupichinolide (2) oleandrine (3), cryptostigmin II (4), and cymarin (5). Their structures were elucidated on the basis of NMR, MS, and IR spectroscopic analyses. Compounds 1, 2, 5, and 6 showed significant cytotoxicity against six human cancer cell lines (HCT-116, HepG2, HeLa, SK-OV-3, and SK-MEL-5, and SK-BR-3)